Alwaght- Sudan’s Foreign Minister rejected a recent report by the Wall Street Journal that Iran made a request from Sudan to establish a permanent naval base on its Red Sea coast.
"Iran has never contacted Sudan to build a naval base in this country," Ali Sadeq Ali told the Russian Sputnik news agency.
He further told Sputnik that "today, I read the Wall Street Journal piece, this news is untrue."
He further said that he recently visited Tehran but this issue was not discussed.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published a report saying that Khartoum rejected a Tehran bid to establish a base for its naval ships in the country.
The American newspaper further claimed that Tehran made the request in exchange for drones and a "warship" as the North African country is struggling with a civil war.
Iran and Sudan had close ties for decades before a Western-backed coup of the army generals toppled Omar al-Bashir.
The West over the past three decades has always been critical of close Tehran-Khartoum ties, but al-Bashir defied the West by building close relations with the Islamic Republic.
However, Sudan cut off ties with Iran in 2016, when protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran in protest to execution of prominent Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr Baqer Nimr.
Their ties remained cut-off, until October that the two countries announced resumption of diplomatic relations.
On February 5, the Sudanese FM visited Tehran, resuming ties after 7 years.
