Sudan will cut ties with the United Arab Emirates, the army-affiliated defence council said on Tuesday, following army accusations that Abu Dhabi supports the rival Rapid Support Forces in the nation’s civil war.

The defence council accused the UAE of supplying the RSF with advanced and strategic weapons that enabled it to carry out damaging strikes on facilities in the city of Port Sudan since Sunday, a major escalation in the two-year-old conflict.

The UAE has repeatedly denied such charges.

The council said it had decided to declare the UAE an “aggressor state,” saying that it “reserves the right to respond to the aggression by every means to preserve the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Sudan’s army has long accused the UAE of arming the RSF.

The UAE denies the charge but some UN experts and US lawmakers have found it credible, citing evidence in reports by human rights organisations on the supply of weapons.

The latest report by a UN panel of experts published in April did not mention the UAE except to refer to its involvement in peace talks in Sudan.

On Monday, the International Court of Justice said it could not rule on Sudan’s case accusing the UAE of fueling genocide in Darfur by supplying weapons to paramilitary forces as it lacked jurisdiction.

Sudan had argued before the UN’s top court last month that the UAE was violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in Darfur, but the UAE said the case should be thrown out.