A Syrian man from Syria’s Kurdish town of Kobani has claimed that the land on which Turkey has chosen to move the recently exhumed remains of Süleyman Şah actually belongs to him and that no one informed him that the tomb would be built on his private property, a Turkish daily has reported.

According to a report published by the Vatan daily on Tuesday, the plot of land Turkey chose to rebuild the tomb, which is about 200 meters away from the Turkish-Syrian border in Şanlıurfa in an area being called Syrian Eşme, belongs to a 45-year-old Syrian man named Bozan Osman

Speaking to the daily, Osman, who took shelter in Şanlıurfa’s Birecik district near his relatives when clashes between Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants and Kurdish fighters broke out last autumn, said the land where the new tomb will reportedly be built belongs to him. He added that he didn’t sell the land or make any agreement with anyone regarding it.

“I saw Turkish soldiers going toward our village on [Saturday] night. I mean, the distance is [so close], around 200 meters. When we looked there [his land] in the morning, we saw the troops. I went to our mukhtar, Suphi Yavuz, and asked if the Turkish troops were on our land. The mukhtar told me: ‘Nothing bad will happen. The Turkish Republic is a big state and it won’t cause you grievance.’ The area is around 1,000 square meters. The whole of it belongs to me. No one came to me beforehand to inform me [that the tomb would be placed there],” Osman said.

The Syrian man also claimed that he went to speak with the Turkish soldiers and they also told him that “nothing bad will happen.”

He spoke about how the conditions of war in the area have affected him and the 12 members of his family, and he asked the Turkish government for help: “We are already in a difficult situation. While we were in Syria, we were earning our living by farming the land where the tomb will be built. We had planted wheat and barley. We are asking for help from the Turkish government. Land in Syria is too expensive. We don’t know what will happen.”