afrinpost – follow up
The Turkish newspaper, Zaman, reported that an official in the Russian Defense Ministry said that the “rebels” supported by Turkey were stealing the historical heritage from the city of Afrin and its surroundings in northern Syria, and bringing it to Turkey.
Oleg Yegorov, deputy head of the Russian Coordination Center in Syria, told the official Syrian News Agency, “The terrorist groups are excavating antiquities and architectural and historical artifacts near the city of Afrin occupied by Turkey, using modern and heavy explosives and equipment.” Egorov explained that these ancient artifacts are sent to Turkey to be sold on the black market later.
The Russian official accused Washington, whose forces are confined to the east of the Euphrates, reflecting the different positions between Washington and Moscow. He said that “many American and Turkish archaeologists are cooperating with terrorist groups to loot the archaeological heritage of Syria and commit crimes against the Syrian people and the history and civilization of Syria by destroying historical sites.”
The Russian official’s statement came very late, as the antiquities in Afrin were targeted in the first days of the aggression by bombing the historical site of Ain Dara, while the bulldozing of archaeological sites and hills and the theft of artifacts continued for four years, and Moscow remained silent about them, and the irony is that the Russian official calls antiquities thieves there as “rebels”!
According to a 2016 Sputnik report, the sale of historical artifacts smuggled from Syria through Turkey was revealed in documents captured by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units from ISIS.
A document obtained by Russia Today says that ISIS has established a separate unit to smuggle historical artifacts, and the documents contain special information about a historical smuggling of artifacts in Turkey.
Thus, Moscow knows that there is no difference between the behavior of ISIS and the militias of the Turkish-supported “National Army”, as both of them smuggled Syrian antiquities to Turkey.
