Algerian Company Exports Copper and Aluminum to Israel
ALGIERS, July 28 (IslamOnline & News
Agencies) - A private Algerian company exported the remains of copper and Aluminum to Israel via
Cyprus despite an Arab boycott against trade deals with the Jewish state, news agencies
reported Saturday.
The Algerian daily al-Khabar quoted traders from al-Olmeh municipality of Steif province, to the East of Algeria, saying that the deal was actually made several weeks ago through the port of the capital Algiers. The traders stressed that this deal was not the first and expected not to be the last.
The paper added - in a report about the scandals of foreign policy and the various ways of smuggling - that the scandal of exporting copper and Aluminum to Israel is the most recent in the series of scandals that have shaken the Algerian foreign trade sector for many years.
The paper mentioned that a private Algerian company by the name of SNC exported May 8 a telephone exchange center to Israel, which was made up of kinds of precious metals that melted - after treatment - into diamond and gold.
However, this operation and other similar ones have come to shake the foreign trade sector following the Algerian government's decision in 1994 to lift the state's monopoly on the trade sector and encourage foreign exports.
Due to the fact that foreign trade is not organized in Algeria, several suspected trade operations took place.
Illegal exports deals estimated at a cost of U.S.$ 65 million, the value of which was put in foreign bank accounts, forced the Algerian customs department to freeze the exportation of steel and iron remains for one month at the beginning of this year.
Despite scattered movements in Algeria towards 'normalization' of ties with Israel, the average Algerian has constantly demonstrated rejection to such efforts.
Last year, a group of Algerian journalists were received at the airport of the capital Algiers by slogans accusing them of " treason" after coming back from a 10-day-trip to Israel.
At the time, more than 100 journalists and several parliament members and intellectuals in Algeria denounced the visit, stressing in a statement they signed that this visit is considered a violation to the press credibility in Algeria, a violation to the principles of the nation and a hurry towards normalization with Israel which has usurped Arab rights.
