Turkey Accused of Selling Stolen Syrian Olive Oil as Its Own

Several different groups ranging from politicians to non-governmental organizations and news outlets have documented the alleged plunder of Syrian olive oil.

Olive groves outside of Afrin. Photo courtesy of Bertramz.
By Daniel Dawson
Jan. 15, 2019 11:27 UTC
609
Olive groves outside of Afrin. Photo courtesy of Bertramz.

The gov­ern­ment of Turkey has been accused of steal­ing olives from neigh­bor­ing Syria, press­ing them into oil and sell­ing that oil to European Union coun­tries, includ­ing Spain, labeled as Turkish olive oil.

These rev­e­la­tions came to light after an exhaus­tive inves­tiga­tive report from Spanish news­pa­per El Público, Turkish gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments obtained and pub­lished by Firat News Agency (ANF), obser­va­tions from the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and infor­ma­tion seen by a Swiss politi­cian.

The Syrian Observatory learned that thou­sands of olive oil tanks were stolen from olive com­pres­sors in the Afrin coun­try­side, by fac­tions oper­at­ing in the Olive Branch’ oper­a­tion, and they were sold in sev­eral mar­kets.- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights observer based in Afrin

In Turkish-occu­pied Afrin, the olive groves are being pil­laged by both Turkish forces and the mili­tias they sup­port,” Bernhard Guhl, a Swiss Member of Parliament (MP) from the coun­try’s Conservative Democratic Party, said. The olives they steal have been sold to Spain, and the sale will con­tinue.”

Turkey invaded the north­west­ern Syrian province of Aleppo, in which Afrin is located, in January 2018 in an effort to pro­tect its inter­ests in the region. Known, as Operation Olive Branch, the effort was meant to help sta­bi­lize the region, but many in the area say that Turkey is exploit­ing Afrin for eco­nomic gain. Turkey is the third largest exporter of olive oil to the European Union, after Tunisia and Morocco.

See Also:Olive Oil Fraud

Saleh Ibo, the Agricultural Council Deputy Chairperson for the dis­trict of Afrin, told AFN that Turkey has made at least $80 mil­lion from the seized Syrian olives.

They have also been con­fis­cat­ing the fields and olive groves of peo­ple who have had to flee Afrin due to the Turkish state vio­lence in the months since the inva­sion,” he said. We can say that 80 per­cent of the olives in Afrin are being taken to Turkey with no cost through the [para­mil­i­tary groups] and the coun­cils they formed.”

According to local sources who spoke with El Público, the Syrian olives are pressed in local mills that have been taken over by these para­mil­i­tary groups. The result­ing oil is then trans­ported over the bor­der to Turkey where it is blended with and labeled as Turkish olive oil, before it is then sent on to European Union coun­tries, some­thing that has been made much eas­ier after a recent trade deal was signed between the two.

This infor­ma­tion has not been con­firmed inde­pen­dently by Olive Oil Times. However, it lines up with what sources for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have seen on the ground in Afrin. The group mon­i­tors human rights abuses in the coun­try, which is enter­ing its ninth year of civil war.

The Syrian Observatory learned that thou­sands of olive oil tanks were stolen from olive com­pres­sors in Afrin coun­try­side, by fac­tions oper­at­ing in the Olive Branch’ oper­a­tion, and they were sold in sev­eral mar­kets,” the Observatory said in a state­ment on its web­site.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mon­i­tored the con­fis­ca­tion of thou­sands of olive oil tanks and the olive har­vest, and the cut­ting of hun­dreds of trees to be sold as fire­wood,” the state­ment con­tin­ued.

According to inter­views con­ducted with Turkish sources by El Público and the doc­u­ments released by ANF, at least 5,000 tons of olive oil have been pro­duced in this man­ner, which in today’s mar­ket is worth about $80 mil­lion. The same fig­ure that Ibo esti­mated.

Of the $80 mil­lion, as much as $22 mil­lion has been returned to the var­i­ous para­mil­i­tary groups and coun­cils, which have been work­ing with Turkey to main­tain con­trol of the region. Local sources believe that Turkey and these allies are prepar­ing to con­tinue this process in the future.

While Turkey has not for­mally acknowl­edged these accu­sa­tions, Bekir Pakdemirli, the Turkish Minister of Agriculture, told state media late last year that the gov­ern­ment would be con­fis­cat­ing olives grown in the region in order to pre­vent them from being processed and sold by the Kurdish forces that pre­vi­ously occu­pied the area.

Turkey views the Kurds, who are spread across Turkey, Syria as well as Iraq and have been seek­ing an inde­pen­dent state of their own for the past 70 years, as var­i­ous ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions. The Kurds have been staunch U.S. allies in the fight against the so-called Islamic State.

A Turkish board mem­ber for the International Olive Council and a board mem­ber of the Aegean Exporters Association both declined to com­ment on this story. The Turkish Olive and Olive Oil Producers Association did not respond to mul­ti­ple requests for com­ment.

Meanwhile, in Spain there has been no for­mal com­ments on these rev­e­la­tions by the National Association of Industrial Packers and Edible Oil Refiners (Anierac) nor the Spanish Association of the Olive Oil Exporting Industry and Commerce (Asoliva).

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However, Luis Escalante, who runs the small Andalusian olive oil com­pany Aurum, told El Público that he had received sus­pi­cious sales solic­i­ta­tions from Turkey recently. Escalante has pur­chased olive oil from the Middle East for many years and said that noth­ing like this has hap­pened before.

Only a few days ago an export com­pany from Adana called Ozcelic Trading con­tacted us to offer us oil, and the truth is that this is not the usual thing,” Escalante said. Adana is located two hours away from the Syrian bor­der.

Spain is seen as an ideal des­ti­na­tion for Turkish olive oil, par­tic­u­larly fraud­u­lent oil, because such large amounts are imported and exported each year that it is hard for cus­toms agents to check all of it.

It is not sur­pris­ing that the Turks have resorted to Spain,” Escalante said.

He points out that Spanish com­pa­nies also have been known to re-export oil from Tunisia and Morocco labeled as Spanish olive oil. Last year, DCoop was crit­i­cized for import­ing and export­ing prac­tices per­tain­ing to olive oil acquired in Morocco.

Nor is it unlikely that there are Spanish com­pa­nies involved in these ille­gal activ­i­ties because in our coun­try there is a long tra­di­tion of import­ing oils from coun­tries like Tunisia, to be mar­keted later as their own to third coun­tries,” Escalante said.

Guhl, the Swiss MP, said now that aware­ness of this type of fraud is increas­ing, it is imper­a­tive that European Union coun­tries work together to stop it.

It does­n’t mat­ter if the final des­ti­na­tion is Spain or Germany,” he said. I believe that it is very impor­tant that the coun­try or coun­tries con­cerned launch a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine whether com­pa­nies are trad­ing stolen olives or olive oil.”

At the time of writ­ing, no crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion had yet been launched by Spanish or European author­i­ties.





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