Sudan agreed to allow Russia to establish a naval base on its Red Sea coast, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Youssef said on Wednesday. The deal would give Moscow sway over one of global commerce’s most valuable trade routes.

While the agreement was discussed under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the new military government had put the matter under review.

However, having met with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Youssef said that the deal had been signed. “The matter is very simple… We have agreed on everything,” The BBC reported him saying.

The planned base — Russia’s first in Africa — could provide Moscow with an alternative to its naval base in Syria’s Tartus, after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s Moscow-backed regime weakened its presence in the Mediterranean.

The base comes amid intensifying competition for influence around the Horn of Africa: The US and China have bases in Djibouti, while the US recently stepped up its bid for a military base in Somaliland.

However, Russia’s plans could be hampered by the ongoing civil war in Sudan, where the rebel Rapid Support Forces still control swaths of the country.

|Semafor