Turkey Blamed for Syrian Antiquities Drain

Moscow's "Sputnik" is reporting "Turkey Not Cooperating With Syria on Returning Smuggled Artefacts" which will no doubt please the lobbyists for the international cabal of antiquity dealers who do not want to see items repatriated to Syria while there is a civil war going on.

Ankara [has] refused to cooperate with Damascus on returning of ancient artifacts smuggled by the Islamic State (IS) militant group from Syria through Turkey, the head of Syria's Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) told Sputnik on Friday. According to Maamun Abdel Karim, statues, paintings, artifacts and ancient mosaics stolen from Syria have repeatedly been found on sale on the open market in the Turkish city of Gaziantep since the way for stolen in northern Syria ancient values lies through uncontrolled border with Turkey.

The official called on the international community to help Syria in returning the objects that had already been smuggled to Europe, North America and the Gulf states. So far the dealers are resisting, basically by pretending the problem does not exist, and if it does, it is not their fault ("It wasn't me miss"), and if forced to go dangerously close to admitting it is, to trot out a Two Wrongs argument ("but Bazza does it too miss, but you don't tell him off").