Turkey has changed its borders with Syria in many sites in northern of the country, it is not clear if the act is only limited to some sites , or it is along the Turkish-Syrian borders.
Hundreds of meters of Syrian land have been included in the Turkish territory by changing the position of the barbed wires between the two countries.
Many farmers had Thursday gone for a sit-in inside their farms against the attempt of the Turkish police to change the position of the barbed wires to beyond their lands to include them in the Turkish land. The police shoot frequently in air, and they injured a farmer, but that did not stop farmers from attempt to defend their lands.
Abo Abddul-Wahab, a farmer from Hatya village complained to Zaman al-Wasl over the phone, his voice was quavered and angry: “we hardly could tolerate taking mountains and raw lands, but why seizing our lands, it is correct, the unprotected properties encourage theft, as there is no one to protect the land, no military faction, nor local councils and opposition figures to defend us, we only pray for god to save us”, he ended his phone call as he could not continue talking due his anger.
This incident is not the only one, as many sites ad fields along the border, such as Harem and Salqin have rejected the Turkish attempts to expand in their lands, but many were unfortunate and their lands were seized.
A member of the National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and Opposition has talked to Zaman al-Wasl about the subject on condition of anonymity: “we know that Turkey had seized and included many areas and wide area of Syrian land to its territory, but no one dare to talk about the matter openly either inside the coalition or to discuss it with the Turkish side.
There are many breaching of boarders along the Turkish-Syria borers, for example in
Rihaniyah and around Bab al-Hawa crossing point as the land taken by the Turkish side and included within its territory is estimated by 1000 meter depth inside Syrian land.
It was not possible to talk to any Turkish official to discuss the matter, but a border guard who can talk Arabic very well explained that the aim of controlling some areas inside Syria by the Turkish side, is to have better control on smuggling and to prevent clashed and terrorists to reach to Turkish lands.
A geography teacher, Mostafa Hamdan, who lives in one of the camps in Western Countryside of Idlib calculated the land taken by Turkey from the Syrian land and estimated it to be equal to the area of Iskenderun territory, taking in account that the area along the Syrian-Turkish borders at depth equal to the land taken from the village of Kherbet-al-Joz around his area.
It is not the first time for Turkey to occupy Syrian land silently, as it had included wide area of Jabal al-Turkmen in the countryside of Latakia to its territory in the nineties of last century without the agreement of the Syrian regime
