Earlier this month, seven European Union ambassadors walked through Khartoum for the first time since Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023. They were received by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on their first visit to the capital since the conflict began.
The visit came after three years in which the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces displaced a quarter of the population and pushed close to twenty million people towards acute food insecurity.
Burhan’s government is now pairing that diplomatic opening with a more discreet message directed squarely at Washington.
Sudan’s army has curbed its purchases of Iranian weapons as the country tries to win American support for talks to end the war. The realignment points to a military leadership reading the regional balance correctly, betting that Washington’s goodwill now decides whether its battlefield gains translate into lasting power.
Khartoum’s Discreet Retreat From Tehran
Iranian drones and other arms helped the Sudanese military recover ground in a conflict that has killed more than a hundred thousand people, but that particular assistance has become a liability as Sudan’s government tries to win favour with President Donald Trump.
Sudan and Iran had severed diplomatic links in 2016 over loyalty to Saudi Arabia, then restored their alliance a few months into the civil war in a decision widely read as an effort to bolster the army with Iranian military support. Washington noticed. Earlier this year, the State Department flagged the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood’s links to Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard, a designation that made the partnership politically prohibitive for Port Sudan to maintain.
Washington Holds The Leverage Burhan Wants
Khartoum’s strategic calculation explains why its officials have grown attentive to legislation advancing through Congress. Four senators from both parties introduced the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation in Sudan Act of 2026, intended to hold the war’s perpetrators and external backers accountable.
The bill would expand the discretionary sanctions regime, assess whether armed actors meet the criteria for further designation, and update the advisory warning American businesses about Sudan’s risks.
For an army hoping to attract reconstruction financing rather than further isolation, distancing itself from Tehran becomes less a gesture of principle and more a precondition for consideration in Washington’s calculations.
Brussels Returns With Conditions Attached
Washington is not alone in setting terms. The European mission that concluded its first joint visit to Sudan since the war began entered the capital with its own caveats.
The Heads of Mission rejected external support that stokes the conflict and criticised the illegal influx of weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters, warning that such support is prolonging the war. They also reaffirmed support for the Quad alongside the Quintet grouping of the African Union, the United Nations, IGAD, the League of Arab States and the EU, in pursuit of a civilian-led process.
Burhan’s diplomatic reception in Khartoum and his army’s retreat from Iranian suppliers therefore answer a singular external audience, an audience that links normalisation directly to verifiable de-escalation.
Ankara and Cairo Fill the Gap
Sudan’s realignment cannot be read as a clean break from foreign-armed war efforts. Regional observers note that the war on Iran has only temporarily diminished the flow of weapons reaching Port Sudan through the Revolutionary Guard, with Egypt and Turkey positioned to fill that vacuum. Saudi Arabia, for its part, persists in backing the army politically and financially, consistent with a Gulf-wide recalculation of self-sufficiency.
The UAE reached an equivalent conclusion after absorbing nearly three thousand inbound missiles and drones earlier this year, building defence industries that need no outside permission to operate. Sudan’s army appears to be adopting a similar regional rationale, swapping one set of foreign suppliers for others judged less diplomatically prohibitive rather than abandoning external arms entirely.
A Realignment Still Awaiting A Ceasefire
None of this settles whether the underlying war edges any closer to ending. Burhan has previously tested the limits of Quad patience by proposing Qatar and Turkey as substitute mediators, a manoeuvre that frustrated the exact coalition Washington now leans on.
The PEACE in Sudan Act, if it passes, would give the Trump administration new tools to reward or penalise the army’s choices, turning Sudan’s realignment from a gesture into a test with consequences attached.
The honest measure of this month’s diplomacy will not be how many Iranian shipments stop docking in Port Sudan. It will be whether a lessened need for Tehran accompanies an actual ceasefire, the only outcome Washington, Brussels and millions of displaced Sudanese citizens are still waiting to see.
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