Informed sources revealed that the Chairman of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, received an official invitation from the Saudi leadership to visit Riyadh, just hours after the arrival of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in the Kingdom for a four-day visit at the invitation of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, reflecting a rapidly accelerating diplomatic movement in the region.

According to the sources, Saudi Arabia is leading coordinated moves with the United States and Egypt to rearrange the landscape in Sudan, amid fears of expanding Emirati influence in the Red Sea, which is one of the most important strategic waterways in the world.

Information indicates that Sudan is on its way to returning to the Red Sea resources exploitation agreement signed with Saudi Arabia in 1974, an agreement whose economic gains – according to initial estimates – exceed the $5 trillion mark, and includes huge marine resources that remained untapped for decades, before returning to the forefront at a sensitive political moment that is reshaping the economic map of the region.

Expert and political analyst Makawi Al-Malik confirmed that the Horn of Africa is witnessing a pivotal moment in which conflicting influence projects intersect, noting that the region is experiencing something like a “new cold war” between regional axes, most notably the Saudi-Eritrean-Sudanese-Egyptian alliance in the face of Emirati-Ethiopian moves extending from Bab al-Mandab to eastern Sudan, and from Assab to Berbera.

Makawi explained that what is happening is not just border tensions or diplomatic disputes, but rather a “coordinated attack on the regional balance” and an attempt to reproduce the model of chaos that struck Sudan and Yemen, but this time in the heart of the Horn of Africa.

He pointed out that the Emirati-Ethiopian project, which he said is supported by external powers, includes supporting militias, operating cargo planes, establishing military bases, and ultimately a plan to control the Red Sea, at a time when Ethiopia is on the brink of a new war, according to a report by The Economist magazine, while Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed considers access to the sea an "existential matter."

Makawi emphasized that Saudi Arabia has become a major player in the equation, and that the Eritrean president's visit to Riyadh was not merely a protocol visit, but rather a "turning point" in the context of intensive diplomatic efforts that included Port Sudan and Cairo in recent weeks. He added that Riyadh understands that the fall of the port of Assab to Ethiopia—with Emirati support—poses a direct threat to Red Sea security, and that opening a new front on Sudan's borders could transform the region into "a new Syria" and reproduce the Yemeni scenario on a larger scale.