MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2021) Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi told Sputnik that Khartoum was not pressured by any external forces, including the United States, when renegotiating the Russian Red Sea naval base agreement.
"No. We are the government of the people, we are the government of the revolution [2018-2019 Sudanese protests], it's a revolution that has been well paid by the blood of our youth, by our people. What we have now is our full relations with the international community for whatever is good and beneficial for the Sudanese people," al-Mahdi said.
News broke in May that Sudan was freezing the agreement on the creation of a Russian military base in the Red Sea, which was signed with the previous authorities. The Russian embassy in Khartoum denied the veracity of the allegation that the agreement had been suspended.
The agreement to create a Russian naval post in Sudan was announced in November 2020. According to the document, the maximum number of personnel at the base will not exceed 300 people. No more than four Russian ships will be able to stay there at the same time.
