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On Turkey’s busy border with Iran, in a shed filled with boxes of cooking oil, a shopkeeper read aloud to his coworkers the latest news on his phone: peace talks between the United States and Iran postponed.<\/p>\n
For these traders, the vicissitudes of war and the economic crisis in Iran have brought an unexpected boon to their business. As prices for basic commodities have risen in Iran, they can sell olive, sunflower and corn oil for a modest profit to Iranians over the border, who will either sell the oil inside their country or use it themselves.<\/p>\n
Dozens of people were seen carrying multiple four- and five-liter bottles of oil walking on foot from Turkey toward Iran during a single morning and afternoon. In interviews, shopkeepers said demand for cooking oil had increased in recent times.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have only recently started doing this,\u201d said Maryam, an Iranian woman who bought four bottles of cooking oil with her husband on Wednesday, intending to sell them back home. “Cooking oil is better than cigarettes that couples usually buy and sell across the border because it brings in higher profits,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Maryam said she could buy a five-liter bottle in Turkey for a little more than $10 and sell it inside Iran at cheaper rates than the going rate in shops there, making a small profit of about $2. Like most Iranians interviewed at the border, he declined to give his full name, fearing retribution from the Iranian government.<\/p>\n
Other Iranians interviewed did not want to reveal their identities at all. Oil sellers in T\u00fcrkiye, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said they wanted trading to remain prudent so that Turkish authorities would not end it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Kapikoy land crossing near the city of Van in eastern T\u00fcrkiye provided one of the few durable contacts between Iranians and the outside world during the war. The country’s airspace has been closed for much of the past two months, though it has reopened in recent days, and citizens are left in the dark due to frequent government-imposed internet shutdowns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The sharp rise in cooking oil trade is a strong sign of the growing inflation crisis that has weighed on Iranian families for years, and which has become particularly acute in recent months. inflation rate in iran Estimate<\/a> The figure for this year is about 70 percent, which would be the highest rate calculated by the IMF for the country since at least 1980.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n