Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) so-called Salvation Government in Greater Idlib has abandoned Syrian Pound in favor of Turkish Lira.
In the last few days, the self-proclaimed government brought large quantities of Turkish bills and coins. The plan is to slowly replace the Syrian pound with Turkish Lira in day-to-day trade in Greater Idlib.
After the approval of the “Salvation Gov”, large quantities of Turkish lira bills and coins reached Idlib’s central bank, as the unstable Syrian lira will gradually become replaced by the Turkish lira. The Syrian lira will soon lose almost 5 million users (Idlib & Aleppo) pic.twitter.com/HDTa8GyPzR
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) June 11, 2020
The Salvation Government was formed by HTS in 2017. Back then, the U.S. warned from dealing with the al-Qaeda-affiliated government. However, Turkey is apparently ignoring this warning.
In the last few months, the Syrian pound lost most of value, falling to over 2,000 for U.S. Dollar. Crippling sanctions imposed by the West, a devastating economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon and a long COVID-19 lockdown were blamed for the collapse.
On June 11, Ibrahim al-Ibrahim, General Finance Director in HTS’ government, told the al-Sham News Network that public sector employees in Greater Idlib will from now on get paid in Turkish Lira. Last May, the government converted the value of the salaries to U.S. Dollar.
“Due to the continues collapse of the Syrian Pound, and in order to achieve the desire of the employees, who don’t want to get paid in Syrian Pound, the government has started to pay salaries in Turkish Lira, which was widely welcomed by the employees,” al-Ibrahim said.
Some opposition activists hope that switching to Turkish Lira in Greater Idlib will further damage the Syrian pound, thus weaken the financial capabilities of Damascus. While this is very possible, the newly-injected Turkish currency could easily reach government-held areas.
Despite the ongoing conflict, opposition areas trade with government-held areas on a daily basis through smuggling. This means that the Syrian Pound will remain desirable as “hot cash” in Greater Idlib as well as in Turkish-occupied areas in the north and northeast.
Good, Palestinians also use Israeli money instead of the Jordanian Dinar so it seems they like working in Israel rather in Jordan. Same goes for Idlib, if they want to use the Turkish Lira it’s their decision.
Your example is not entirely accurate. Judging by the GDP Per Capita of both countries, the Palestinians would earn more than 10 times in Israel than they can earn in Jordan, so clearly they want to work in Israel.
Yup Free Man, but let other here keep shouting “apartheid and genocide” and ignore the facts. I bet if they could, they would all ask for Israeli citizenship too. BTW, Palestinians in the Jordan Valley would most likely be allowed to become Israeli citizens after we annex it, it should be between 20K-60K of them.
I can’t understand why you would want them as Israeli citizens. As I wrote before, unilateral annexation is a mistake in my opinion.
We have to annex it, it’s our border with Jordan. Part of it is to give them rights like the Palestinians that live in Eastern Jerusalem, so it’s a fair deal.
You still miss the point, I have personally nothing against apartheid regime, in South Africa the black people were better off than other African countries, it simply doesn’t work, you cannot go against demographics
Israel already has 1.9M Israeli Arabs not including the 300K Palis in Eastern Jerusalem that might be under Israel or not. I agree it’s not good for our demographics but it’s either annexing them or deporting them and that would lead into sanctions that I don’t think my government wants. They won’t get the Jordan Valley in any peace deal anyway, so why wait? P.S I’ll added a map so people will see which part it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_the_Jordan_Valley
1. If you think you must, as you write, do it by talking to your neighbors. 2. I still don’t understand why Israel would want to give its enemies Israeli citizenship. Isn’t it better to give them their own country behind a tall fence? tall fences do make good neighbors.
I agree, I don’t support giving them citizenship but it’s our legal obligation to take care of them if we annex them since they didn’t ask for it. The thing is, suddenly some Palis move to the Jordan Valley before July 1st to try and get citizenship, so I’m not sure how many of them will be under us. Anyway, the IDF is getting ready for it: https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/idf-carries-out-virtual-annexation-excercise-1.500455
“The thing is, suddenly some Palis move to the Jordan Valley before July 1st to try and get citizenship” – Why wouldn’t they? Most Palestinians / Syrians / Lebanese / Iraqis / Jordanians …will be “prepared” to accept a citizenship of a Western country. But the question is quite different – is it in the Western country’s best interest to give them citizenship? I think not.
You are right, but maybe they can use the citizenship to immigrate to other Western country. But who knows? maybe suddenly Bibi will fold and won’t annex it, that man is capable of doing pretty much anything.
“switches”……..love that 1……….welcome to “turkey”.
Now with the arable lands in Turkish hands and the oil fields in American hands, Syria hasn’t chance to survive as a country, that will mean misery for ordinary people and major migration towards Europe.
Or maybe Europe should be smart and start trading with Syria once again and rescue it where it is, instead of accomodating the neo Ottoman/US agenda. We will see.
The residents of Idlib just want to use a stable currency to buy food for their families. The residents of latakia and Tartus are also ready to exchange the Syrian currency to any other stable currency.
I have to agree with your last point, all the major powers that are using Syria like a chessboard should at least partially withdraw and attempt a peace process, otherwise Europe will soon witness a massive influx of refugees.
The various countries play a cynical and cruel game at the expense of the Syrian citizens. Indeed, the collapse of both Syria and Lebanon is a very reasonable possibility.
Good to know the ISIS Sharia Head-Chopper Salvation government is going to save Syria.. Maybe also make their ISIS Sharia blood-priests as kindergarten teachers? Now that they have become so popular..
Well, when EU sanctions will come into force against Turkey, their currency will become as worthless as the syrian one. The thing is, using a currency overvalued for your economy always leads to deflation, meaning the economy comes to an halt because it is not competitive enough.
you cant buy anything of value with this garbage.. but maybe it can be used as toilet paper..
This is terrible news, now both of the opposition governments that operate in Syria have more buying power than the loyal Syrians do, which means the Syrians will be paying more of their paychecks for their food and medicine and HTS and the Turkish opposition will be paying out less of theirs. I hope the Kurdish held areas don’t start doing the same thing too, if they switched to using the US dollar the effects could be devastating, Syria’s already in enough trouble economically as it is, so this is getting close to being the extra straw that breaks the camels back. I’d nearly forgotten that wars can be won without physical conflict, a collapsing economy can lose a war just as fast as a collapsing front line can. Hopefully some shrewd minds are getting together to try and come up with some good solutions.