Government subcontracts US: Deputy

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Growing tensions with Syria, a result of Turkey’s policy to materialize regional U.S. policies similar to a subcontractor, are increasingly hurting the Turkish economy, Umut Oran, a deputy from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said.

“A U.S. policy to change borders and governments in the Middle East within the scope of its Great Middle East Project, which it calls the ‘Arab Spring,’ aims at guaranteeing energy demands for future generations, and strengthen its control over world energy resources has failed in Syria,” Oran said in a statement yesterday that included an economic report on Syria.

“But the Turkish economy is seeing the largest losses of a process that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) carried to a point of a covered war, as a part of its subcontractor duty of the Great Middle East Policy to topple the Syrian government,” he said.

Exports to Syria from Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, Mardin, Mersin, Osmaniye and Şanlıurfa fell 58 percent to reach $82.3 million in the first seven months of the year from $194.5 million in the same period a year earlier, Oran said. The drop reached 85 percent in July, he said. The country lost $700 million from a drop in Syria exports in the first seven months, he said.