Asia Times:
Russia drags Turkish farmers into Syria front line
MOSCOW - A century ago the Ottomans understood not to press the Russians in close encounters; the Turks are slow learners. After several recent episodes in which the Turkish armed forces have attempted to interfere with Russian vessels delivering cargo to Syria, the Russians have now delivered the message that Turkish cargoes headed for Russia may be stopped altogether.
The subtlety of this message has yet to be detected by the Anglo-American war media. They are still blustering over the message the Syrians delivered when they used Russian-made cannons to shoot down an American-made Turkish spy plane over Syrian territory on June 22.
Six days later, on June 28, the Russian government's food safety and quarantine service Rosselkhoznadzor (RSN) issued an announcement disclosing that it had detected 33 cases of infestation in Turkish exports to Russia of fruits and vegetables. The detection had reportedly taken place over the previous six months, possibly longer. The pests were identified in the official announcement as "the American white moth and the western (California) flower thrip".
RSN said it had "appealed to the General Directorate of Protection and Control of the Turkish Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock to take urgent measures to ensure full compliance with Russian and international phytosanitary requirements for the regulated supply of Turkish goods to Russia." Then followed the warning of a trade embargo. "As you know, in 2005 Rosselkhoznadzor was forced to introduce restrictive measures on imports of Turkish plant products due to the discovery of systemic [infestation] in the quarantine facilities in Russia."
The RSN announcement might have identified the pests by their common English or Latin names - the fall webworm or Hyphantria cunea, as the moth is known, and the western flower thrip, Frankliniella occidentalis. But RSN probably wasn't intending a reminder of the entomological history according to which the insects were native to the US and migrated from there to Europe. Explicitly naming the insects as American, however, appears to have been intended to convey the larger point - by relying on American infestation of the political and military sort, going to war against Syria, and imposing an armed cordon around its supply lines, Turkey is putting at risk its trade with Russia. The Turkish generals may enjoy their warmaking; Turkish farmers may not.........