The Sudan-Turkey and Egypt-Eritrea growing alliances trigger armed crisis in the Red Sea

Tension in the Red Sea region continues to rise as Sudan sends troops to its border with Eritrea, and Egypt sends troops to Eritrea. Turkey’s pledge of economic support to Sudan is further complicating the situation.
It all started last month when Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan went to Sudan. It is the first time that a Turkish president went to the former Anglo-Egyptian colony, after its independence in 1956.
During the visit, Erdogan and his counterpart Omar al-Bashir signed several trade agreements and also a parallel agreement that was not welcomed by Egypt. In return, Sudan leased to Turkey its historic port city of Suakin, an ominous signs of Turkey’s meddling in the dispute between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over the Nile dam that is currently being constructed.
Erdogan has promised huge restorations of Suakin to bring the location back to its former glory in order to increase tourism.
However, it is clear that once the port has been renovated, it will also serve as a support point for military vessels. In essence, the lease could be used as a naval base by Turkey, a threatening move for Egypt.
The lease agreement was severely criticized by Egypt, a traditional enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood that is led by Erdogan. Egypt leaders have crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in their own country. The relation between Turkey and Egypt sourced after Erdogan condemned the 2013 Egyptian military coup, which overthrew President Mohamed Morsi, a member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
After the Saukin lease agreement, Turkey has sought to ease tensions through statements by Serdar Çam, the president of Tika, the Turkish Development Cooperation Agency, who said that “Turkey is only creating the basic infrastructure Sudan needs.”
For its part, Sudan, through the Sudanese ambassador to Saudi Arabia, responded that “Suakin belongs to Sudan and to no one else and promises that the agreement with Turkey will not threaten the security of the Arab countries”.
The reassurances, however, were not enough to mend the tension, as evidenced by the reaction of Egypt, which responded by sending heavily armed troops to an Eritrean military base on the border with Sudan. And Sudan reacted by recalling the ambassador of Egypt for consultations and sealing the Kassala region on the border with Eritrea with thousands of soldiers.