KHARTOUM: Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir traveled to Saudi Arabia on Monday for a checkup after a throat infection, his office said, assuring the public for the second time in two weeks that he is in good health.

“The president of the republic will do a normal medical review connected with an infection in his throat,” the official SUNA news agency said, quoting a statement from Bashir’s office.

The president is “in good health and is carrying out all his presidential activities normally,” it added.

Bashir’s press secretary Emad Sayed Ahmed in late October denied rumors the 68-year-old was sick. “During Ramadan he had minor surgery and it is finished. There is nothing now,” Ahmed said at the time.

He gave no details of the operation which he said took place during the holy Muslim fasting month, which was observed from mid-July to mid-August.

The president, known for his fiery public speeches, has been relatively quiet in recent weeks, making his fewer orations more restrained.

Bashir seized power in a 1989 military coup which overthrew a democratically elected government and established an Islamist regime.

He was declared the winner of a multi-party presidential ballot in 2010 but European monitors said the vote failed to reach international standards.