Ahmad 
“The Wall Street Journal” revealed that Iran tried to convince Sudan to allow it to build a permanent naval base on the Red Sea coast.
Accepting Iran’s request would have allowed it to monitor maritime traffic to and from the Suez Canal and Israel.
Iran has provided the Sudanese army with drones to be used in its fight with the RSF and has offered to provide weapons if Sudan approves the base.
The newspaper quoted an intelligence adviser to Sudanese military commander Ahmed Hassan Mohammed as saying that Khartoum rejected the Iranian proposal to avoid antagonizing the United States and Israel.
A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment on the newspaper, which noted that the presence of a naval base on the Red Sea allows Tehran to consolidate its control over one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
Sudan had close ties with Iran under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and after his ouster in 2019, the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, began a rapprochement with the United States in an attempt to end international sanctions imposed on his country, and also moved to normalize relations with Israel.
Iran’s request to build a base highlights how regional powers are seeking to capitalize on Sudan’s 10-month war to gain a foothold in the country, a strategic crossroads between the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa with a Red Sea coast.