Tehran, which has supplied drones for Khartoum’s war with a rebel warlord, pledged a warship in exchange for access but was turned down.
Iran unsuccessfully pressed Sudan to let it build a permanent naval base on the African country’s Red Sea coast, 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.
Iran has supplied Sudan’s military with explosive drones to use in its fight with a rebel warlord and offered to provide a helicopter-carrying warship if Sudan had granted permission for the base, said Ahmad Hasan Mohamed, an intelligence adviser to Sudan’s military leader.