Sudan’s leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, received Iran’s ambassador on July 21, 2024, and sent his own to Tehran, marking a rapprochement between the two countries after an eight-year diplomatic rift. Details.
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It was decided and it is done: the Sudan and Iran end 8 years of diplomatic rupture. The rapprochement between the two countries, underway since July 2023, took shape on July 21, 2024 with the inauguration of two ambassadors.
On Sunday, in Port Sudan, the administrative capital of Sudan since the start of the war, the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, received, according to the Sudanese government, the new Iranian ambassador Hassan Shah Hosseini.
It was in solidarity with Saudi Arabia that Sudan decided to cut off diplomatic relations with Tehran, in 2016following the attack on the Saudi embassy in Iran, which itself was a reaction to the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Riyadh.
Today, the situation has changed. First, there was a surprise reconciliation between Riyadh and Tehran in March 2023. Several countries in the region then reconciled with Iran. Then, since April 15, 2023, there has been the war in Sudan. Khartoum then reconsidered its relations in the region, based on the alliances imposed by this conflict and by the involvement of certain regional forces alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitaries of the rival general, Hemedti.
New support for Sudanese army against paramilitaries
A rapprochement then took place with Tehran. There was a first meeting, in July 2023, between the heads of diplomacy of the two countries, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
The decision to resume diplomatic relations was announced in a joint statement last October.
A recovery that is of strategic importance for both parties. With this new support, Tehran extends its influence in the region and benefits from an additional presence in the Red Sea area. As for Khartoum, it has new support, including for the supply of weapons and specifically drones in the face of the advances of the FSR.