PORT SUDAN, (Sudan): Sudan’s de facto leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, received on Sunday an Iranian ambassador and sent his own to Tehran, the government said, cementing a rapprochement after an eight-year rupture.

Sudan and Iran agreed last October to resume diplomatic relations, as the army-aligned government scrambled for allies during its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The Sudanese government, loyal to the army in its 15-month fight against the RSF, announced in a statement that Burhan had received Tehran’s new ambassador Hassan Shah Hosseini in Port Sudan.

The Red Sea city has become Sudan’s de facto seat of government since Khartoum became wracked by fighting.

This is “the beginning of a new phase in the course of bilateral relations between the two countries”, foreign ministry undersecretary Hussein al-Amin said as Burhan sent off Sudan’s new ambassador to Iran, Abdelaziz Hassan Saleh.

Sudan broke off relations with Iran in 2016 in a show of solidarity with Saudi Arabia, after the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran was attacked following the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. Several Saudi allies in the region also cut ties with Iran at the time.