IGAD: Awaiting RSF’s Official Approval

Sudan Events – Follow-ups

Sources with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan said in statements to Al-Sharq on Wednesday that the Forces Commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti,” has agreed to meet with the President of the Sovereign Council and Army Commander, Lieutenant General Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan, in Djibouti, on Thursday.
African diplomatic sources explained to Al-Sharq that IGAD, based in Djibouti, is still awaiting official approval from Hemedti, but they indicated that IGAD has completed all arrangements for the expected meeting between the two sides, scheduled for Thursday, to discuss ending the war that has been going on since 15th of April, this year.
Informed Sudanese sources indicated in statements to Al-Sharq that Al-Burhan and his accompanying delegation are ready to head to Djibouti on Thursday morning, after completing travel arrangements, while sources with the Rapid Support Forces confirmed to Al-Sharq that Hemedti agreed to meet Al-Burhan, in any place set by IGAD, without preconditions.
Army Commander Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan received an invitation to the meeting organized by IGAD, as a Sudanese source told Al-Sharq earlier, on the sidelines of the “Arab-Russian” forum, as the Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Al-Sadiq handed over to the Djibouti ambassador to Morocco a written message from Al-Burhan agreeing to hold the meeting, but he said it should discuss eviction of RSF troops from citizens’ homes, and a ceasefire in accordance with the Jeddah Declaration.
Hemedti had said that “the Islamists involved in provoking violence in Sudan should be handed over,” as part of the confidence building measures that were agreed upon in the Jeddah talks, a promise that the army did not fulfill, he said, denying the possibility of holding the meeting without removing these obstacles.
A member of the Advisory Office of the Commander of the RSF, Ibrahim Mukhair, said in previous statements to the Arab World News Agency (AWP), that “the RSF asked the army commander to come to the negotiations in his capacity as commander of the Armed Forces, and not in his capacity as a representative of the Sudanese people or the Sovereign Council, because we consider it as “false capacity,” and a peace agreement cannot be reached relying on a capacity that does not exist.”