Jul 23. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United States on Tuesday invited delegations from the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to a new round of indirect talks mediated by the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
“The United States calls on the Sudanese military and RSF to attend the talks and engage constructively with the imperative to save lives,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Blinken recalled that these talks “aim to achieve a nationwide cessation of violence,” as well as to allow humanitarian access throughout the country and “develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure the implementation of any agreement.”
In this new round, which will begin on August 14, Saudi Arabia is co-hosting with Switzerland, while the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations will participate as observers.
The latest indirect negotiations took place on July 11 and ended without an agreement on the table, although the UN special envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, said they represented “an optimistic step in a longer and more complex process.”
The military abandoned the talks, initially initiated in Jeddah and mediated by the United States, after denouncing that the RSF were deployed in civilian homes and public spaces that they refused to evacuate in violation of the so-called Declaration for the Protection of Civilians signed on May 11 by both sides less than a month after the outbreak.
The war, which broke out on April 15 following sharp disagreements between the army and the RSF over the integration of the paramilitary group into the armed forces, derailed the transition process that began following the overthrow of Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 after 30 years in power.
Add Comment