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| Syria: Facts and Recommendations on the “Arab Belt” Project 52 Years Later | |
| 2026-06-25 | |
| [STJ-SY.ORG] The “Arab Belt” File Should Be Integrated Into Syria’s Transitional Justice Process Through A Comprehensive Review Of Land Confiscations And Resettlement Policies, While Safeguarding Victims’ Property Rights 1. BACKGROUND The project, commonly known as the “Arab Belt,” is one of the most prominent examples of “demographic engineering” carried out in Syria before 2011. Although the project’s practical implementation began in the 1970s, its roots and early indicators trace back to a series of policies and veiled legal measures introduced years earlier. The project was officially implemented following Resolution No. 521, issued by the Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party on 24 June 1974. Under this directive, thousands of Arab families displaced by the construction of the Tabqa Dam were resettled along a border strip along the Syrian-Turkish frontier. These communities became widely known as the “Arab al-Ghamr” (the Inundated Arabs), a designation derived from the flooding (al-ghamr) of their ancestral lands by the rising waters of the Euphrates Dam. The project involved the expropriation of vast tracts of agricultural land across predominantly Kurdish areas within the al-Hasakah Governorate, as well as in parts of the rural Raqqa countryside and northern Aleppo, with a particular focus on land directly adjacent to the Syrian-Turkish border.
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| Posted by:badanov |