Khartoum: Sudan does not have an alliance with Iran and will not enter a military alliance with the country, a Sudanese minister has said.
Sudan’s State Minister at the Presidency of the Republic, Ameen Hassan Omar, said that the recent docking of Iranian warships in Sudanese ports less than a week after Sudan held Israel responsible for an attack on an arms factory in Khartoum may have been a message by the two states to its adversaries, reported Saudi-owned Al Sharq Al Awsat. The minister however dismissed allegations that his government has an alliance with the Islamic republic, or that it gives it cover to produce arms.
“We do not have an alliance with Iran and we will not have a military alliance with it because we are outside the Iranian axis. If we establish military ties, they will be with neighbouring states. But we stand by our rights to get nuclear technology,” he is reported to have said.
Asked by the interviewer why Sudan was accused of providing “cover” for Iran, he said it was only Sudan’s adversaries that made such accusations “to hurt us politically and in the media”.
He said that Sudan would not follow the domestic and regional policies of other states. “If we gave up our sovereign foreign policy decisions, will those states that we flatter look after our security and economic interests? They will not.”
He suggested that it was not out of the ordinary for Iranian ships to come to Sudan, saying “they go everywhere” and speculated that the controversy over the Iranian naval visit to Sudan was rooted in Gulf states’ dispute with Iran. “Perhaps the docking of Iranian ships in Sudan is a response to the message from the other side,” he said.
“We have no special relations with Iran. Some countries have special sensitivities towards Iran, which we do not have. We assess our relationship based on mutual interests. If the West wants us to appease this [state] or that, that we will not do”.
