GAZIANTEP: As excitement swept through the Syrian community after Bashar Assad’s overthrow, businesses in Turkiye that rely on them for labor began quickly crunching the numbers.
“The Syrians have made a big contribution to the textile sector here. If they leave, there will be a serious labor problem,” said Ali Gozcu, reflecting the widespread anxiety gripping Turkiye’s textile industry.
Gozcu runs ALG Teksil, a clothing firm in Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish city that is home to half a million Syrians.
“We don’t expect a sudden departure, but if it happens, we will suffer a serious loss of labor,” he told AFP, adding that 70 percent of his workers were Syrian.
And he is not alone.
“All of the workers here are Syrian,” agreed Yusuf Samil Kandil, a quality controller at Beni Giy clothing, referring to the Unal district where textile firms line the run-down streets and old-fashioned mannequins stand in dusty shopfronts alongside racks of garments.
“If the Syrians leave, our labor costs will increase significantly, as well as our production costs,” he told AFP.
Turkiye is the world’s sixth-largest textile manufacturer and its industry is based in the southern regions that host most of its around 2.9 million Syrian migrants.
Government figures show that around 100,000 Syrians have work permits, but experts believe about a million Syrians are active in the Turkish economy, mostly in informal, labor-intensive jobs in construction, manufacturing and textiles.
Their departure could put a serious dent in the workforce of an industry that is struggling with inflationary pressures and rising costs.
So far, just over 81,000 people have returned, interior ministry figures show, although observers expect a surge in June over the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
On ALG’s factory floor, dozens of young men and women sit hunched over industrial sewing machines or overlockers, churning out thousands of t-shirts.
A new Syrian flag hangs on the wall and there is an Arabic notice on the toilet door.
Zekeriya Bozo, a 55-year-old worker who wants to return to Syria and “create a new business there” said: “If Syrians leave, there won’t be anyone left to work” at ALG.
But experts say it is a complicated picture for Syrians, suggesting fears of a mass departure are unfounded due to the uncertainty hanging over a country ravaged by 13 years of war.
“Although they’re very happy that Assad is gone, that was only one barrier to them going back,” said Professor Murat Erdogan, whose Syrians Barometer survey has consistently flagged their concerns about safety, the potential for conflict and Syria’s ruined infrastructure.
Most have established a life in Turkiye, with more than 970,000 babies born over the past 12 years.
Despite tough working conditions, they know they are unlikely to find something better back home, he told AFP.
“They told us they have a lot of problems in Turkiye and work very hard for very little money. But if they go back, even if they did find jobs, they said they’ll only get $14 a month,” he said.
They earn far more than that in Turkiye.
“Going back is a huge decision. Because of that, I think a maximum of 20 percent of them will return and that will take a lot of time.”
Despite the uncertainty, Gozcu is looking into new ways of working that could accommodate the return of some Syrians, nearly half of whom hail from the Aleppo region just across the border from Gaziantep.
“We’ve become very close with our Syrian workers,” he told AFP.
If need be, “we will open workshops in Syria for them and will continue our production there,” he said.
Although much of Syria was in ruins, Kemal Kirisci, a migration expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said there was potential for developing business links in the future.
“Syria is a very promising place in the long run. Ideally, we could have a very porous economic border so people could move back-and-forth,” he told AFP.
“It would be a win for Turkish industry, for the economy, a win for Syria and for the new regime.”
There could eventually be a revival of the so-called ‘ShamGen’ area of free trade and visa-free movement between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkiye that was inspired by the EU’s Schengen zone but collapsed at the start of the war in 2011.
“These things could be revived very easily — but the key lies with this new regime,” he said.
Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return
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Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return
Washington presses Syria to shift from Chinese telecom systems
- Syria is exploring the possibility of procuring Chinese technology
- It was unclear whether the United States pledged financial or logistical support to Syria to do so
DAMASCUS: The United States has warned Syria against relying on Chinese technology in its telecommunications sector, arguing it conflicts with US interests and threatens US national security, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The message was conveyed during an unreported meeting between a US State Department team and Syrian Communications Minister Abdulsalam Haykal in San Francisco on Tuesday. Washington has been coordinating closely with Damascus since 2024, when Syria’s now President Ahmed Al-Sharaa ousted longtime leader Bashar Assad, who had a strategic partnership with China.
Syria is exploring the possibility of procuring Chinese technology to support its telecommunications towers and the infrastructure of local Internet service providers, according to a Syrian businessman involved in the procurement talks.
“The US side asked for clarity on the ministry’s plans regarding Chinese telecom equipment,” said another source briefed on the talks.
But Syrian officials said infrastructure development projects were time-critical and that Damascus was seeking greater vendor diversity, the source added.
SYRIAN OFFICIALS CITE US EXPORT CONTROLS AS TELECOMS BARRIER
Syria is open to partnering with US firms but the matter was urgent and export controls and “over-compliance” remained an issue, according to person familiar with the meeting in San Francisco.
A US diplomat familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the US State Department “clearly urged Syrians to use American technology or technology from allied countries in the telecoms sector.”
It was unclear whether the United States pledged financial or logistical support to Syria to do so.
Responding to Reuters questions, a US State Department spokesperson said: “We urge countries to prioritize national security and privacy over lower-priced equipment and services in all critical infrastructure procurement. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
The spokesperson added that Chinese intelligence and security services “can legally compel Chinese citizens and companies to share sensitive data or grant unauthorized access to their customers’ systems” and promises by Chinese companies to protect customers’ privacy were “entirely inconsistent with China’s own laws and well-established practices.”
China has repeatedly rejected allegations of it using technology for spying purposes.
The Syrian Ministry of telecommunications told Reuters any decisions related to equipment and infrastructure are made “in accordance with national technical and security standards, ensuring data protection and service continuity.”
The ministry said it is also prioritizing the diversification of partnerships and technology sources to serve the national interest.
Syria’s telecom infrastructure has relied heavily on Chinese technology due to US sanctions imposed on successive Assad governments over the civil war that grew from a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011.
Huawei technology accounts for more than 50 percent of the infrastructure of Syriatel and MTN, the country’s only telecom operators, according to a senior source at one of the companies and documents reviewed by Reuters. Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Syria is seeking to develop its private telecommunications sector, devastated by 14 years of war, by attracting foreign investment.
In early February, Saudi Arabia’s largest telecom operator, STC, announced it would invest $800 million to “strengthen telecommunications infrastructure and connect Syria regionally and internationally through a fiber-optic network extending over 4,500 kilometers.”
The ministry of telecommunications says that US restrictions “hinder the availability of many American technologies and services in the Syrian market,” emphasizing that it welcomes expanding cooperation with US companies when these restrictions are lifted.
Syria has inadequate telecommunications infrastructure, with network coverage weak outside city centers and connection speeds in many areas barely exceeding a few kilobits per second.
