{"id":53575,"date":"2025-08-30T00:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=53575"},"modified":"2025-08-30T00:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:04:16","slug":"53575","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/30\/53575\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Revives Peace Efforts After a Year of Stalemate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events \u2013 Agencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

A secret meeting in Zurich between U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s envoy and Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan may mark the beginning of a serious move in Sudan\u2019s peace talks after a year of deadlock. The three-hour session, held on August 11 and attended by Burhan and Trump\u2019s Africa adviser, Massad Boulos, was mediated by Qatar, a key partner in Trump-era U.S. diplomacy. Both sides sought to keep the meeting under wraps, but it proved significant enough to prompt Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE\u2019s vice president and national security adviser, to travel to Zurich the following day to meet Boulos.<\/p>\n

The encounter came after a failed meeting in early June that brought together ambassadors of the \u201cQuad\u201d countries (the United States, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia). At that session, American diplomats told their Sudanese counterparts they were working on new political proposals to end the war.<\/p>\n

Conditions in Sudan have sharply deteriorated over the past year, amid brutal attacks on civilians by rival military factions and a severe funding shortfall for U.N. relief efforts, as Western governments \u2013 including the United States \u2013 cut aid budgets.<\/p>\n

Western diplomacy has stalled: the London summit in April ended without a final communiqu\u00e9, while a previous U.S. initiative in Geneva a year earlier also collapsed. With Trump\u2019s return to the presidency on January 20, his Africa adviser Boulos pushed for renewed engagement, but his efforts were sidelined as he turned to other files in Congo and Rwanda involving \u201cresources-for-deals\u201d arrangements.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear who makes up Boulos\u2019s Sudan team, particularly as many senior regional experts have left both the State Department and the National Security Council. Nor is it known whether any new analytical assessments of the war have been commissioned. Boulos appeared keen to convene a new Quad meeting\u2014perhaps only to demonstrate his format\u2019s relevance\u2014and was determined to exclude the U.N. and African Union from any high-stakes military negotiations.<\/p>\n

At a Washington meeting on July 30, familiar arguments resurfaced, ending in deadlock. Egypt insisted the armed forces must lead the transition, while a U.S. draft communiqu\u00e9 notably omitted direct roles for both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Egypt escalated its position, prompting sharp opposition from the UAE\u2014the same stance Abu Dhabi had taken earlier in London and again in June.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that most of Sudan\u2019s regional war sponsors\u2014Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE\u2014are close U.S. allies, unlike Turkey and Iran. Even though the session proved inconclusive, their positions were made clear.<\/p>\n

Cairo does not want to see Sudan\u2019s army\u2014or the civilian administration it has installed in Port Sudan\u2014excluded from any prospective transitional phase. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Sudan\u2019s military leaders share deep ties, built on long-standing industrial and defense partnerships and joint officer training at Cairo\u2019s military academy.<\/p>\n

The UAE, under Mohammed bin Zayed, is Egypt\u2019s largest foreign investor\u2014with $35 billion committed on the Mediterranean coast\u2014and politically aligns with Cairo, but opposes its Sudan policy. Abu Dhabi argues that the war must end through a civilian transition excluding military factions. Yet critics call this hypocritical, given the UAE\u2019s role as financier and chief backer of Mohamed Hamdan \u201cHemedti\u201d Dagalo\u2019s RSF, while simultaneously supporting a parallel civilian government in western Sudan, undermining the country\u2019s unity.<\/p>\n

The UAE goes further, portraying Sudan\u2019s army as sheltered by extremist Islamist factions tied to the ousted National Congress Party of 2019, while seeing Hemedti as the greater threat. As one secular Eastern Sudanese activist put it, the RSF poses a more serious danger to civilian transition than Islamists, \u201cwhose playbook we at least know.\u201d<\/p>\n

What exactly transpired between Boulos and Burhan remains undisclosed. But Washington\u2019s team appears to be adopting a new strategy: talk first with Sudanese leaders, then with regional sponsors. Hemedti may well be next on the list, especially following Sheikh Mansour\u2019s meeting with Boulos in Zurich on August 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan Events \u2013 Agencies A secret meeting in Zurich between U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s envoy and Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan may mark the beginning of a serious move in Sudan\u2019s peace talks after a year of deadlock. The three-hour session, held on August 11 and attended by Burhan and Trump\u2019s Africa adviser, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53577,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53575\/revisions\/53577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}