Sudan rejects reports of Iran plans for naval base on Red Sea coast

Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Al-Sadiq Ali has dismissed reports of Iran’s intention to establish a naval base on the country’s Red Sea coast.

The denial follows a claim made by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday that Iran “unsuccessfully pressed Sudan to let it build a permanent naval base” there, and that it was “something that would have allowed Tehran to monitor maritime traffic to and from the Suez Canal and Israel,” according to a senior Sudanese intelligence official.

However, Al-Sadiq was quoted by Sputnik Arabic as saying “I have read the article published in American daily newspaper The Wall Street Journal. The news story is false and fabricated.” He made the comments on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum 2024 in the southwestern Turkish city of Antalya on Sunday.

He added that Iran has “never asked Sudan to establish a base there. I paid a visit to Iran lately, and the issue was never raised during my stay.”

The source in the WSJ article, Ahmed Hassan Mohamed, alleged that the base would have allowed Iran to “gather intelligence” and “station warships” near the strategic Suez Canal and the Israeli-occupied territories.

READ: Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe under the RSF militia

He also said that Iran had offered drones to Sudan’s military to help them gain an upper hand over rebel forces amid the African country’s civil war and proposed a helicopter-carrying warship in exchange for permission to build the base. However, the Al Sudani news website denied the reports, citing a Sudanese Army spokesperson as saying that Iran made no such offers to the army.

Sudan has been locked in internal strife since 15 April, 2023, when General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a paramilitary organization clashed with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces in a power struggle in the capital Khartoum.

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran could have made the offer during the visit of the Sudanese foreign minister to Tehran last February. It has been suggested that Al-Sadiq’s visit to Tehran was intended to send a warning message to regional countries backing the RSF.

“The Sudanese Army leadership knows that Iran cannot offer them unlimited military support in return of nothing,” the sources said. “Therefore, they are seeking to restore their relationship …to produce a balance of power in the region, particularly in the absence of any country willing to support them at the military level,” the sources added.

The two countries resumed diplomatic ties in October of last year, in a bid to strengthen bilateral relations and to promote stability in the region. In 2016, Sudan severed diplomatic ties with Tehran in solidarity with Saudi Arabia, following its embassy in Tehran being stormed in protest over the execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr.

READ: Sudanese humanitarian crisis overshadowed by Gaza conflict: Top diplomat