CAIRO (AP) — Russia's foreign minister met with Sudan’s military rulers on Thursday, state media in Sudan reported, the final stop on Sergey Lavrov's tour of Africa.
The top Russian diplomat Africa trip has been seeking to strengthen ties and expand influence at a time when the West has sought to isolate Moscow with sanctions over Russia's war on Ukraine.
Lavrov held talks with Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, the head of Sudan's ruling Sovereignty Council, as well as with his deputy, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads a powerful paramilitary known as the Rapid Support Forces,
The meetings focused on improving cooperation between the two countries, the state SUNA news agency said, without providing details.
At a press conference later, Lavrov acknowledged the presence of Russian-owned mining companies in Sudan, “primarily in the field of developing the mineral resource base.″
’’We appreciate the attention that the Sudanese leadership pays to them,″ Lavrov added.
According to a recent Associate Press investigation, Wagner Group — a military contractor owned by an oligarch with close ties to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — has a strong presence in Sudan's far-flung provinces. According to Sudanese officials and documents shared with the AP, the group has been given control of various Sudanese gold mines by the country’s military leaders in exchange for military and intelligence training.
Embroiled in a deepening economic crisis, Sudan's military rulers are in talks with some political forces in the African country to reinstate a civilian government after more than a year of military rule following the October 2021 military coup.
On Wednesday, senior diplomats from the United States and other European nations concluded two days of talks with Sudanese representatives to push for a final agreement to return Sudan to a transition to democracy.
The coup derailed Sudan’s short-lived, democratic transition that followed the removal of longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 amid a popular uprising against his Islamist-backed repressive rule.
Lavrov arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after visiting Mali and Mauritania in what has been his second trip to Africa this year. Central to his appeal to African nations has been casting Russia as an anti-imperialist force, tapping into resentment of Western colonialism and oppression on the continent.
Russia’s growing influence was particularly evident in January in Burkina Faso, when protesters condemning France and the Economic Community of West African States waved Russian flags on the street of the capital, Ouagadougou.
___
Associated Press writer Elise Morton in London contributed to this report.
