Notes from Sudan on Africa and Turkey

Three months ago we went to Sudan on the occasion of the ordinary congress of the ruling National Party, and three months later our path has taken us there again. Truthfully, this visit of ours is to fulfill promises we made to make up for not having been able to accept a series of invitations we received earlier because of the traffic congestion of the congress.

The Sudanese people's affection for Turkey, for Turks and especially for our President Erdoğan is beyond description. They show this on every occasion, and in this respect government and opposition make no difference. This affection we see is Turkey's greatest strength. However, unfortunately, it is not possible to say that Turkey has a material presence, attention and policy here commensurate with this moral power it holds.

In fact, when one thinks about it, we can see that Sudan holds many possibilities and much potential that Turkey needs today. Turkey had adopted opening up to Africa as a strategic policy, but in this opening it cannot make sufficient use of Sudan, which is one of the most important centers in terms of logistics, politics and human resources. And this is despite the fact that Sudan has opened all its doors and all its possibilities to Turkey to the fullest.

There is no doubt that there are difficulties in developing some relations because of the unjust embargo that has been applied to the country for twenty years, but together with those difficulties there are also some facilities; these facilities, of course, need to be found and brought out. When that trouble is borne, the yield is much greater.

On this occasion it is worth touching on some changing tendencies in our business world. Unfortunately our business world has begun to readopt the habit of not engaging in ventures that are not highly guaranteed.

We say "readopt" because this was the typical characteristic of the so-called "central capital," which was fattened up and always favored since the founding of the Republic. Working without taking any risk, with state-guaranteed jobs, fleeing the risks contained in investment, and taking refuge in the guarantee of state tenders without fail…

Was it not this adventurous, bold, risk-taking characteristic that made the conservative capital that rose in the eighties advantageous against the central capital, that gave the secret of its rise? This made it creative and enabled it to make much greater leaps in a short time in risky fields. Because great successes cannot be achieved without taking risks.

Today, seeing that that conservative capital has gradually begun to adopt the characteristics of the old capital, if not inside Turkey then abroad, is not promising for the future of the most important actors of the social transformation that has taken place in Turkey since the nineties. Thank God that these days MÜSİAD has opened a branch and is trying to revive this spirit that has been on the verge of becoming routine.

Sudan could be the most important gate of the opening to Africa for Turkey. China is currently passing through this gate most actively and effectively, and the very good use made of this gate has an important share in the formation of China's indisputable influence in Africa today. The same gate is wide open for Turkey.

The embargo on Sudan has prevented investments from coming to the country, true, but the biggest cause of Sudan's present troubles has been the internal turmoil that lasted many years rather than the embargo. The Westerners, who promoted South Sudan's secession as the liberation of the Southerners, played all sorts of games to bring about this separation. In the end the separation took place, but this separation neither brought peace to the South nor secured the oil revenues that were in fact the real factor behind the separation. Because of the fights the tribes in the South have entered into among themselves and which continue, they have still not been able to book the oil as revenue.

In contrast, because Sudan was left without oil after the separation, it has rolled up its sleeves to develop different resources and a healthier development not based on natural resources. This means a more rational management of the country, improvement of education, greater embrace as citizens of the people living on the remaining Sudanese soil, and a development-oriented administration. Since the separation Sudan has covered significant distance on this road, so that it now has a much brighter horizon of the future ahead of it.

In contrast, after the separation Sudan has carried out a serious inventory study in order to make better use of its underground and surface wealth and has set investment policies in motion. Sudan, which holds, besides very rich precious minerals such as gold, diamonds and platinum, the world's largest copper, chromium and phosphate reserves, also has serious oil reserves. All the government officials I met are calling in particular on Turkish investors to make use of these minerals.

Sudan's lands are also extremely suitable for agricultural production of a strategic nature. There is no reason why it should not be an important food and livestock warehouse for the Gulf countries and in fact for Turkey. That the project proposed by TİGEM a few years ago for leasing a large piece of land and for agricultural applications has still not achieved the expected progress is a problem that needs to be settled as soon as possible, because unfinished projects do not concern only themselves; they also block the way of other ventures. Yet this project is extremely critical and constitutes both an important threshold for the future of Turkey-Sudan relations and, of course, an important step that will trigger a process of solving Sudan's important problems.

People do not forget the good done to them in hard times. Sudan greatly appreciates Turkey's standing by them in their hardest times, but today, in their own hard times, a helping hand is worth far more. Turkey needs to form a working group, perhaps for many countries but certainly first for countries like Sudan, and make use of the rich potential that exists for relations in a more active way.

We must also say that there is quite an optimistic air regarding political developments in Sudan. As a result of the dialogue process, the late Hasan Turabi's party, the Community Congress Party, became a partner of the government. There is much to say on this as well, but let us leave that for later.