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Sudan’s foreign ministry has dismissed an East African regional mediators’ communiqué claiming that army head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had agreed to a truce and political dialogue to halt hostilities.
According to the UN, the landlocked country has been mired in eight months of brutal warfare between competing factions, with over 12,190 people killed and 6.6 million displaced.
Following a session in Djibouti the day before, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the East African alliance managing the crisis, said on Sunday that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) commander had pledged to “an unconditional ceasefire.”
According to an IGAD statement, General Burhan also consented to a “one-on-one meeting” with the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.
According to the group, the leader of the paramilitary forces, General Dagalo, accepted a plan to end the crisis through talks with his competitor, General Burhan.
Hemedti stated on Monday that the RSF accepts the findings of the IGAD conference and is eager to collaborate to end the crisis. He did, however, add that acceptance of the proposed meeting was contingent on General Burhan not attending in his capacity as transitional government president.
The Sudanese foreign ministry, on the other hand, stated on Sunday that it did not recognise the IGAD statement, citing discrepancies and distortions.
According to Reuters, the ministry did not include notes it had made in the public statement, specifically that the army chief’s meeting with General Dagalo was predicated on a durable truce and the evacuation of RSF forces from Khartoum.
The IGAD summit communique “was not based on consensus, nor was it legally binding,” according to a statement issued by the army-aligned ministry and published by Sudanese broadcaster Radio Dabanga.
The Sudanese government’s concerns against UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Shakhboot Bin Nahyan Al Nahyan’s attendance in the meeting “were not included,” it added.