Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced on Saturday that Turkey had decided to relocate its embassy in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, to Port Sudan following an incident in which the Turkish ambassador’s vehicle was targeted by gunfire. To ensure the safety of the embassy and its staff, the decision was made to move the embassy, Çavuşoğlu told the semiofficial Anadolu Agency.
Turkish Ambassador İsmail Çobanoğlu had discussed the issue with both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and informed them about the relocation plans, according to the Turkish minister. The decision came after the official vehicle of the Turkish ambassador was hit by gunfire on Saturday. No one was wounded in the incident but the vehicle sustained damage.
In a classic game of “he said, she said,” the RSF and the Sudanese army pointed fingers at each other after the gunfire incident. The RSF insisted it was totally committed to protecting diplomatic missions but that the area was under the control of the army, led by the country’s de facto ruler Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The army, predictably, pinned the responsibility for the attack squarely on rival Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s forces.