Erdogan's Visit to Iraq Postponed: ‘Time is Not Right’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AP)
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Erdogan's Visit to Iraq Postponed: ‘Time is Not Right’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AP)

Officials in the Iraqi government denied reports that the upcoming visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been canceled, confirming that its date has not yet been determined.

Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the visit has become unlikely because the two parties have disagreed on resolving disputes over oil exports, water, and security.

Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held discussions in Baghdad, aiming to pave the way for Erdogan's visit.

However, the sources said the talks were unencouraging for a visit, explaining that perhaps Turkish officials felt the visit needed more suitable conditions to ensure its success.

-Escalating dispute

According to Iraqi lawmakers, Türkiye sent indirect messages that the escalating dispute between the governments of Baghdad and Erbil over the budget, salaries, and oil exports does not provide a suitable political climate for Erdogan's visit.

Nevertheless, a senior Iraqi official confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that Baghdad continues to prepare for Erdogan's visit.

The sources indicated that the dispute over exporting oil has not been resolved with Türkiye yet.

Last March, Iraq won the case against Türkiye after a years-long struggle over oil exports from the Iraqi Kurdistan region. At that time, the Turkish port workers banned any cargo ship carrying oil from the Kurdistan region, according to Reuters.

-Exporting oil

The Turkish government stipulated that Baghdad must relinquish the case and exempt Ankara from the $2.6 billion compensation to resume exporting oil.

Türkiye filed a lawsuit demanding other compensation from Baghdad amounting to more than $900 million.

Iraqi sources described the issue as very thorny, and the two parties could not resolve it even after Minister Fidan visited Baghdad.

Baghdad is not in a position that allows it to continue to stop oil exports due to financial obligations, so it is trying to find common ground with Turkish officials to resume the export of Kurdish oil.

However, the sources said Erdogan's visit is closely linked to solving this issue.



Syrian Opposition Fighters Take the Homes of Assad's Officers

A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Syrian Opposition Fighters Take the Homes of Assad's Officers

A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Families of military officers who served under Syria's ousted Bashar Assad are being evicted from their subsidized housing at a compound outside Damascus to make way for victorious former opposition fighters and their families, residents and fighters there said.

The Muadamiyat al-Sham compound housing hundreds of people in over a dozen buildings is one of several such areas set aside for officers under Assad's rule, according to Reuters.

As the military is being restructured around the former opposition forces, with Assad-era officers demobilized, the evictions from military housing are not a surprise.

But their rapid replacement in the accommodation by fighters who spent years in impoverished, rural opposition-held territory shows the sudden reversal of fortune for supporters of each side in the conflict.

Names of factions under the main victorious group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which captured the capital on Dec. 8, are scrawled in spray paint on the entrances to buildings, apparently marking them out for fighters from each entity.

Three fighters at the compound, four women who have been residing there and a local official providing documents to those leaving said officers' families had been given five days to go.

“We will start moving our children's schools, starting our lives over. I am very sad, my heart is broken, it's our lives, my children's lives,” said Budour Makdid, 38, the wife of a former military intelligence officer living in Muadamiyat al-Sham.

Makdid's husband, who has signed papers recognizing the new authorities and handed over his gun, has already returned to his family home in Latakia province, a former Assad stronghold, and Makdid and their children would join him there, she said.

Like other families leaving the area, she needed a document from the municipal authorities to say the family was leaving the accommodation and giving permission to remove their belongings.

Local administrator Khalil al-Ahmad, 69, said families had started approaching him several days ago seeking the document and that around 200 requests for one had been made so far.

Ahmad said he had not been officially contacted by the new administration about the change, and was only made aware of it when residents began to ask him for the documents.

Displaced

Any sign of how Syria's new administration intends to handle former Assad officers, as well as property rights, will be closely watched in a country where millions of people have been displaced since civil war erupted in 2011.

Earlier this month, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa was filmed requesting the residents of his family's former home in Damascus to leave and allow his own family to move back.

Some former military families living near the Muadamiyat al-Sham compound but not in the subsidized units from which officers are being evicted are also leaving.

Eidye Zaitoun, 52, was packing her belongings into black plastic bags as she prepared to leave her two-room apartment for the coast. She said her son in the military had moved to the coast too and there was no reason for her to stay.

HTS fighters at the compound were not sympathetic, according to Reuters.