Burhan, High-level Sudanese Delegation, to Visit Turkey at End of Month

Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Abdel Fattah Burhan. (AFP)
Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Abdel Fattah Burhan. (AFP)
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Burhan, High-level Sudanese Delegation, to Visit Turkey at End of Month

Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Abdel Fattah Burhan. (AFP)
Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Abdel Fattah Burhan. (AFP)

Chairman of the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Abdel Fattah Burhan is scheduled to pay an official visit to Turkey at the end of the month at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Heading a high-level delegation, his talks will cover the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) crisis, as well as joint and bilateral relations.

Dubai-based Asharq television said Burhan will be accompanied by the ministers of finance, defense, agriculture, health and higher education.

“The Burhan-Erdogan talks will cover joint relations between both countries, in addition to the GERD crisis between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia,” it reported

On Sunday, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefed on the arrangements for the visit, his office announced.

It did not specify the date of the trip.

Hamdok reviewed agreements signed between Sudan and Turkey.

Deputy Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “Hemedti”, had visited Turkey in May. He was accompanied by a delegation that included the ministers of agriculture, energy, livestock, transport and urban development.

Hemedti had praised the historic relations with Turkey and said he was looking forward to developing them further.

Upon his return to Sudan, he declared that an understanding had been reached to update all previous agreements. He did not elaborate.

Ankara and Khartoum had developed their ties under the regime of ousted president Omar al-Bashir.

After his removal, ties grew strained due to relations between Islamists in Sudan and Turkey. Tensions were further stoked when Ankara hosted several Sudanese Islamist officials, who had fled Khartoum following the fall of the Bashir regime.

Hemedti appeared to have eased the tensions when he made his surprise visit.



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.