Saturday, July 12, 2025
Nordic Monitor
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us
No Result
View All Result
Nordic Monitor
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
  • About Us

Transitional gov’t in Sudan may reverse policies with Erdoğan’s Turkey

April 14, 2019
A A
Transitional gov’t in Sudan may reverse policies with Erdoğan’s Turkey
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

 

The ouster of Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, a close ally of Turkish Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following months-long popular protests has thrown the country’s growing relations with Turkey into uncertainty.

Apparently troubled by the developments in Sudan, Erdoğan lamented the ouster from power of his close brother during a joint news conference with the visiting president of Burkina Faso on Thursday, stating that the world is a strange place. He again targeted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi without naming him or the country and criticized the West for embracing him after the coup.

The Erdoğan government has invested much in financial, technical and military aid to Sudan while trying to prop up Bashir’s ailing government against Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, a group of countries that have problems with Erdoğan due to his support for the Muslim Brotherhood network. In recent years, a flurry of bilateral visits and numerous bilateral agreements stand as testament to the growing and cozy ties between the two Islamist leaders, who often exploited religious sentiment for political goals and personal enrichment.

The propagandists of the Erdoğan regime were quick to brand the coup in Sudan the work of a collective effort by the United States, the Gulf nations, Egypt and Israel, and the front pages of newspapers aligned with Erdoğan declared that the coup in fact targeted Turkey and President Erdoğan, who supported al-Bashir. The frenzy of conspiracy theories, apparently fed by the ruling elite in Turkey, shows how the Erdoğan regime has grown insecure in recent years.

 

 

It is clear that Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are becoming more concerned that economic woes may exert more pressure on the government, especially after key battleground provinces were lost to the opposition in the recent local elections despite the huge advantage Erdoğan enjoyed financially and the round-the-clock media coverage favorable to him.

The question becomes how the transitional government in Sudan will assess relations with Turkey given the fact it desperately needs regional and international legitimacy as well as financial aid to survive amid mass protests. The odds are against Erdoğan, who has helped isolate Turkey in the region by taking on almost all its heavyweights, from Egypt to the Gulf states, and who has growing troubles with Western allies, especially the United States.

Although the transitional government declared that it would comply with agreements, treaties and conventions Sudan has signed, how it will treat existing agreements with Erdoğan’s Turkey remains unclear. There are articles in the existing agreements that allow Sudan to exit, suspend or render the agreement ineffective on the grounds of extraordinary conditions in Sudan. The key is whether the transitional government will continue with a High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, which resulted in the signing of 12 cooperation agreements in Khartoum in December 2017, when Erdoğan visited the country, becoming the first-ever Turkish president to visit Sudan.

Perhaps the matter of Suakin Island, of which Turkey was granted use during Erdoğan’s visit, represents the most significant issue, and it will signal how the transitional government intends to pursue its relations with Turkey. Although details of the agreement were not made public, Erdoğan’s propagandists floated the idea of building a military base in Suakin, which sparked an outcry in Egypt and the Gulf over Turkish intentions. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) has already started restoring buildings in the port, and plans are underway to modernize the port facilities. Erdoğan personally paid a visit to Suakin to survey those facilities.

 

Another agreement that was signed during this visit was a military training cooperation agreement between Turkey and Sudan that actually carries the signature of Sudanese Minister of Defense Awad Ibn Ouf, who has been sworn in as chief of the new military council that has taken over from the ousted al-Bashir. The five-year agreement, signed on December 24, 2017, a copy of which was obtained by Nordic Monitor, covers a range of military cooperation activities. Its renewal is automatic unless either party decides to withdraw from it and notifies the other side in writing. Article 20 provides the option for either of them to drop the agreement at any time.

According to the agreement, the transitional government can recall its military personnel deployed in Turkey for training purposes and can invoke the extraordinary conditions clause in Article 10 of the agreement to withdraw its personnel.

Another agreement Sudan has with Turkey is the allocation of a large swath of land for agriculture purposes to a joint company that is under the control of the Erdoğan government. The agreement, signed on April 28, 2014, ceded territory in Sudan to Turkey for 99 years, and the transactions, activities and processes of the joint firm were exempted from any kind of tax, fee or duty within Sudan according to Article 1.

The joint company was initially founded with capitalization of $10 million, and the partnership stakes were 80 percent Turkey and 20 percent Sudan. Sudan’s share will be paid for by allocation of the land to the company. The company will be managed by an executive board of directors composed of five members to be elected according to the shares of the two sides. In other words, the chairman and deputy chairman of the executive board and the general manager of the company will be assigned by the Turkish side, while another deputy chairman of the executive board and deputy general director will be appointed by the Sudanese side.

A total of 793,000 hectares were allocated for the company in various parts of Sudan, including al-Gazeera (Abugota), Western Umm Durman and North Kordofan Blue Nile, Gedareef, Sinnar, Northern State (Dongola, Amri, Golid, Multaga) and Nile State Al Gazeera (Rahad Medani).

Erdoğan’s ally al-Bashir also helped him set up schools in Sudan to educate and train a new generation of Islamists while shutting down or transferring the best-performing science schools operated by civic group the Gülen movement there. It remains to be seen how the transitional government will treat Erdoğan’s long arm in Sudan, which has set up NGOs, companies and schools as fronts for spreading his own brand of Islamist ideology.

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Turkey and Maldives to conduct joint police operations, share intelligence

Next Post

Erdoğan protects intelligence agency in the case of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink

Abdullah Bozkurt

Abdullah Bozkurt

[email protected]

Next Post
Erdoğan protects intelligence agency in the case of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink

Erdoğan protects intelligence agency in the case of slain Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink

Turkish military fails to explain deaths of 12 soldiers in Iraq cave operation

Turkish military fails to explain deaths of 12 soldiers in Iraq cave operation

July 11, 2025
US lawsuit exposes Turkey-based Ponzi scheme tied to Syrian opposition figure

US lawsuit exposes Turkey-based Ponzi scheme tied to Syrian opposition figure

July 10, 2025
US indictment exposes Turkish link in global drug trafficking network

US indictment exposes Turkish link in global drug trafficking network

July 9, 2025
Turkish military lacks qualified officers to be promoted to general

Turkey’s army struggles with staff officer crisis, turns to aging generals for relief

July 8, 2025
US lawmakers target Turkey’s classification, triggering pushback from Erdogan gov’t

US lawmakers target Turkey’s classification, triggering pushback from Erdogan gov’t

July 7, 2025
Erdogan appoints general accused of torture, corruption and aiding jihadists to lead $30 billion military fund

Erdogan appoints general accused of torture, corruption and aiding jihadists to lead $30 billion military fund

July 4, 2025
Turkey and Syria engage in secret talks on maritime border agreement

Turkey and Syria engage in secret talks on maritime border agreement

July 3, 2025
Turkey faces mounting defense challenges amid regional tensions

Turkey faces mounting defense challenges amid regional tensions

July 2, 2025
Turkey’s FM criticizes nuclear weapons treaty as unjust, questions Turkish endorsement

Turkey’s FM criticizes nuclear weapons treaty as unjust, questions Turkish endorsement

July 1, 2025
EU’s aid to Turkey diverted to spying operations in Europe by Erdogan gov’t

EU’s aid to Turkey diverted to spying operations in Europe by Erdogan gov’t

June 30, 2025

Nordic Monitor

Nordic Monitor is a news web site and tracking site that is run by the Stockholm-based Nordic Research and Monitoring Network. It covers religious, ideological and ethnic extremist movements and radical groups, with a special focus on Turkey.

Tags

al-Qaeda Andrei Karlov China coup Cyprus Diyanet Egypt espionage Germany Greece Gülen Movement Hakan Fidan Hamas Hulusi Akar Ibrahim Kalın IHH Iran IRGC Quds Force ISIL ISIS Isis al-qaida Israel Libya Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı MIT Muslim Brotherhood NATO President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Profiling Qatar Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Russia SADAT spying Spying Activities Suleyman Soylu Sweden Syria Torture Turkey Turkish Intelligence Agency Turkish intelligence agency MIT Ukraine United States

Recent News

Turkish military fails to explain deaths of 12 soldiers in Iraq cave operation

Turkish military fails to explain deaths of 12 soldiers in Iraq cave operation

July 11, 2025
US lawsuit exposes Turkey-based Ponzi scheme tied to Syrian opposition figure

US lawsuit exposes Turkey-based Ponzi scheme tied to Syrian opposition figure

July 10, 2025
US indictment exposes Turkish link in global drug trafficking network

US indictment exposes Turkish link in global drug trafficking network

July 9, 2025

Copyright © Nordic Research and Monitoring Network All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us

Copyright © Nordic Research and Monitoring Network All rights reserved.