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Turkish truckers try to get on the road again

With the dangers and difficulties now inherent in transiting in Iraq and Syria, the Turkish transportation sector is looking for alternative routes to Middle Eastern markets.
Turkish trucks and tankers, shuttling between Turkey and Iraq, queue on a road leading to the Habur border gate in southeastern Turkey, before crossing into Iraq with their goods, February 23, 2008. Turkey's exports to Iraq jumped nine percent last year to $2.8 billion and its influence can be felt across northern Iraq in the form of supermarkets, consumer goods, construction firms and traders from all over Turkey. To match feature TURKEY-IRAQ/CONFLICT    REUTERS/Fatih Saribas  (TURKEY) - RTR1XKEF

Miscalculations by politicians are making life difficult for thousands of truckers trying to make a living off Middle Eastern roads. Turkish transporters now find themselves in dire straits after the closure of roads first in Syria and now in Iraq.

In June, when the Islamic State (IS, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) took 31 truck drivers from Turkey hostage, there had been more than 11,000 Turkish trucks — mostly huge 18-wheeler semis popularly known as TIRs — on Iraq's roads. IS members had already established themselves as the supreme bandits. Any trucker not paying IS extortion money, called taxes, risked being kidnapped. According to a source who spoke with Al-Monitor, the drivers taken hostage had not paid their “taxes” for four months.

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