Crossing opens to help rebuild Syria, boost commerce with Turkey
With the opening of al-Rai border crossing in northern Aleppo, authorities there hope to develop trade activities with Turkey and later allow travelers to move freely between the two countries.
ALEPPO, Syria — Syria's al-Rai border crossing with Turkey has opened for business and is bustling. The roads are paved, there's an administration building and prefabricated halls for truck inspections line each side of the yard.
The crossing lies a little more than half a mile northeast of al-Rai, a small town in northern Aleppo governorate. The local council announced the opening Dec. 16. Attending the ceremony were Seljuk Aslan, deputy governor of the southern Turkish city of Kilis, and Imad al-Din Khamis, deputy head of al-Rai local council and director of the border crossing, as well as representatives of the opposition-affiliated Syrian Interim Government, which now controls the crossing.
Al-Rai is part of the area liberated from the Islamic State earlier this year during Operation Euphrates Shield, a Turkish military intervention aided by the Free Syrian Army.
Turkey had announced Nov. 28 its intention to open al-Rai crossing, also known as the Cobanbey crossing, for commercial use. In a statement that day to Anadolu Agency news, Aslan said Kilis authorities were developing commerce between their city and the Syrian cities and towns located in the Euphrates Shield area, as Kilis is adjacent to Azaz in northern Aleppo.
