Sudan demands payment from Kremlin for Russian Navy base
The new authorities of Sudan, where president Omar al-Bashir, who ruled for 30 years, was overthrown two years ago, are unwilling to fulfill the agreement on a Russian Navy base and demand a revision of its terms.
According to RIA Novosti, the Sudanese Defense Ministry would like to receive economic assistance from Moscow for the next five years in exchange for a 25-year lease of the navy base in Port Sudan, which should become the first fort post of the Russian fleet in Africa since the Soviet era.
The fact that Sudan was going freeze the agreement with Russia, concluded under the former president, became known in April. The Sudanese authorities strongly denied this information until in June it was officially confirmed by the country's Chief of The General Staff, Lieutenant General Mohamed Osman al-Hussein.
According to him, a number of articles of the treaty, which allows the Kremlin to place up to 300 people in the African base and serve up to four ships at a time, including submarines, "caused some harm to Sudan." At the same time, the agreement was never ratified by the parliament, and therefore the authorities do not consider bound by the obligations prescribed in it.
Sudanese authorities said that they assumed that in return Sudan would be able to receive Russian weapons and military equipment free of charge. Russia has not yet responded to this new proposal, RIA Novosti reports, citing its source.
In June, Sudanese Foreign Minister Maryam al-Mahdi said that the authorities were counting on the cancellation and forgiveness of the external public debt, the size of which exceeds $ 50 billion.
In October 2019, after al-Bashir’s government was overthrown, Sudan agreed with the IMF and the World Bank on a reform roadmap to restart the economy and alleviate the debt burden.