Barely 40 miles from the Syrian border, Gaziantep, a booming Turkish city of 1.3 million people, seems worlds removed from the conflict engulfing its southern neighbor. Yet, signs of the war raging next door are not hard to find. The local economy, although still buoyant, is losing some of its spark. Exports to Syria have been halved since 2010, and are continuing to fall. A few years ago, many of the Syrians arriving in Gaziantep were wealthy traders from Aleppo, less than two hours by car. Now, most are refugees, thousands of whom are unable or unwilling to settle in Turkish camps by the border. Locals might occasionally grumble about the impact of the influx on rent prices, but most remain sympathetic to the Syrians fleeing the regime of President Bashar Assad. Family and religious ties — like the Syrian newcomers, the vast majority are Sunni Muslims — are one reason why. In recent weeks, NATO’s deployment of Patriot missile batteries along Turkey’s 560-mile border with Syria – in response to a formal Turkish request last November — has sparked protests across the country. Given the depth of anti-American sentiment in Turkey, it was hardly surprising that small demonstrations also took place in Gaziantep, where a contingent of U.S. Patriots arrived in January. Still, at least here, the deployment seems to have met with muted approval. Ever since Syrian artillery shells began straying into Turkey last fall, and especially since one of these claimed the lives of five people in the border town of Akçakale, local concerns about a large-scale attack have increased, says Gökhan Bacik, a professor at Gaziantep’s Zirve University. The Patriots, he says, “are observed here as a mechanism to appease those feelings.” Once up and running, NATO officials say, the total of six batteries — two each sent by Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. — and manned by roughly 1,200 alliance troops will protect up to 3.5 million people from any potential missile threat. The Dutch and German batteries, based 100 miles west and 60 miles north of the Syrian border, respectively, were declared active![]()
