KHARTOUM, Sudan
A United States of America warship docked in Sudan Monday March 1, a day after a Russian frigate arrived in the same key Red Sea port where Moscow is planning to establish a naval logistics base, an AFP correspondent said.
The arrival of the guided-missile
destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill to Port Sudan follows Washington’s delisting
of Khartoum as state sponsors of terrorism, following the April 2019 ouster of
strongman Omar
al-Bashir.
An expeditionary fast transport
ship, the USNS Carson City, had already docked in the port on February 24, the
“first US navy ship to visit Sudan in decades,” the US embassy in Khartoum said
in a statement at the time.
It “highlights the willingness”
of the US military to “strengthen their renewed partnership” with Sudan’s armed
forces, it added.
The arrival of the USS Churchill
was “the second (US) ship to stop in Sudan this week,” said US Charge
d’Affaires Brian
Shukan.
Its arrival, “sheds light on US
support for a democratic transition in Sudan,” Shukan added, in a message on
Twitter.
The USS Churchill docked shortly
after Russia’s Admiral Grigorovich frigate arrived in Port Sudan, where the
Russian navy said “a logistical support base” would be created.
The Admiral Grigorovich frigate
would refuel and its crew rest after exercises in the Indian Ocean off
Pakistan, the navy added.
Sudan’s military said the Admiral
Grigorovich’s visit was “part of advancing diplomatic relations” between the
two countries, according to a statement late Sunday.
In December, Russia announced
signing a 25-year agreement to build a naval base
in Port Sudan, part of Moscow’s latest push into Africa as it seeks
to renew its geopolitical clout.
The purpose of the base will be
to “uphold peace and stability in the region,” according to the deal.
Russia’s navy will be allowed to
keep up to four ships at a time at the base including nuclear-powered vessels.
The base will be manned by up to 300 military and civilian personnel.
Russia will have the right to
transport via Sudan’s airports and ports “weapons, ammunition, and equipment”
needed for the naval base to function.
The Red Sea naval base will be
Russia’s first in Africa and only its second on foreign soil, after Tartous in
Syria.
The US has its only permanent
base in Africa in the port of Djibouti, 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) to the
south, which overlooks the narrow strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of
Aden — a chokepoint for world shipping.
After Bashir was toppled, Sudan
is led by a civilian-majority administration that has been seeking
reintegration in the international community and to ending decades of pariah
status.
In December, Washington removed
Khartoum from its blacklist as part of a deal for Sudan to agree to normalize
ties with Israel.
The move is hoped to help fix
Sudan’s beleaguered economy suffering from decades of US sanctions,
mismanagement, and civil war, as well as by the secession of oil-rich South
Sudan in 2011.
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