Sudan’s Sovereign Council leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has come under significant international and regional pressure to engage in peace talks aimed at ending the country’s devastating civil war.
On Saturday, al-Burhan announced that a delegation had been dispatched to Cairo to discuss the implementation of the Jeddah Declaration.
The peace talks, led by the United States and attended by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), are being held in Switzerland with the aim of ending the conflict that erupted in April 2023.
The war has caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, with half of Sudan’s 50 million people now facing food insecurity.
Hopes for a ceasefire were dashed earlier this week when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) declared it would boycott the Geneva talks, accusing the RSF of failing to honor commitments made in a previous agreement signed in Saudi Arabia last year.
The decision to abstain from the Geneva negotiations sparked frustration among international mediators.
However, after four days of mounting pressure from the international community to halt the stalling of peace efforts, al-Burhan relented.
He decided to send a government delegation to Cairo to meet with representatives from the United States and Saudi Arabia, the key sponsors of the Jeddah Declaration.
In remarks to a joint Sudanese-Egyptian media delegation, al-Burhan explained that the United States had agreed to engage with the SAF delegation to discuss the next steps in implementing the Jeddah Declaration. “We will send a government delegation to meet them and Saudi Arabia to discuss the steps for its implementation,” al-Burhan said on Saturday.
Al-Burhan emphasized that the Jeddah Declaration requires the RSF to withdraw from civilian homes and public facilities in the Khartoum, Al Jazirah, Sennar, and Darfur states.
The declaration, signed in May 2023, is not a ceasefire agreement, and neither the SAF nor the RSF has fully adhered to its terms since its signing.
Despite agreeing to send a team to Cairo, al-Burhan reiterated his hardline stance against the RSF, threatening continued military action until the RSF are expelled from contested areas. He also clarified that the SAF was not attending the Geneva talks to negotiate a new agreement but to enforce the existing one.
Sudanese sources have dismissed media reports suggesting that the government had already sent a delegation to the Geneva talks, further highlighting the uncertainty surrounding Sudan’s participation in the peace process.