{"id":58798,"date":"2025-12-17T22:10:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=58798"},"modified":"2025-12-17T22:10:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:10:41","slug":"al-burhans-visit-and-the-red-sea-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/al-burhans-visit-and-the-red-sea-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Burhan\u2019s Visit and the Red Sea Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zein al-Abidin Saleh Abdel Rahman<\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 13, 2023, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo\u2014then Vice President of Sudan\u2019s Sovereign Council\u2014visited Asmara and met with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. During that visit, Afwerki told Dagalo that the Sudanese Armed Forces constituted the solid backbone upon which Sudan\u2019s unity and the integrity of its sovereignty rest. He added that although Sudan had become a \u201cbazaar\u201d for foreign agendas, Eritrea would stand only with whatever course the Sudanese army decided. When the war later broke out, Eritrea\u2019s position had already been determined. Dagalo\u2019s visit, in essence, sought to ascertain Eritrea\u2019s stance should a change in power occur.<\/p>\n

In late October 2025, President Isaias paid a five-day visit to Egypt\u2014an unusually long stay that underscored the importance of the agenda discussed with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The talks focused on ending the war in Sudan and supporting the country\u2019s official state institutions, foremost among them the armed forces. Egypt also reaffirmed its support for Eritrea\u2019s security, territorial integrity, peace and cooperation in the Horn of Africa, Red Sea security, and developments in Somalia. In a televised interview, Isaias stressed that responsibility for securing the Red Sea rests solely with the littoral states, warning against non\u2013Red Sea countries seeking military footholds in the area.<\/p>\n

In late November 2025, President Isaias visited Sudan, raising the same issues with Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The discussions emphasized the need for regional states to coordinate efforts to safeguard their security and to eliminate all forms of foreign presence, which was described as a key driver of instability. A week later, the Eritrean president traveled to Riyadh to meet Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. During that visit, Isaias addressed the Red Sea file explicitly, voicing his rejection of any non\u2013Red Sea state\u2019s involvement\u2014specifically referring to Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, which seek oversight of several Red Sea ports. He called on Saudi Arabia to play a role commensurate with its leading regional status to strengthen security and peace for all Red Sea states.<\/p>\n

Al-Burhan\u2019s visit revolves around two interlinked issues: first, the war in Sudan and how to reach a political solution that preserves Sudan\u2019s unity and the integrity of its national institutions; and second, the security and safety of the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia is not distant from the causes of the war that erupted on April 15, 2023. The Kingdom\u2014represented by its ambassador to Sudan, Ali bin Hassan Jaafar\u2014participated in all activities of the \u201cQuad\u201d (Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the UAE), both before and after the war. Moreover, a meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and former U.S. President Donald Trump\u2014along with Trump\u2019s statements\u2014underscored Saudi Arabia\u2019s leading regional role, qualifying it to act as an acceptable mediator.<\/p>\n

During his visit to Saudi Arabia, the Chairman of the Sovereign Council carried with him the leadership\u2019s vision previously conveyed to the U.S. administration through a Sudanese delegation headed by the foreign minister and including representatives of the armed forces, aimed at achieving a ceasefire. The president reiterated this vision in meetings with senior military officers, alongside the understandings reached through the Jeddah platform on May 11, 2023.<\/p>\n

Upon his return, al-Burhan made no public statements beyond a post on the \u201cX\u201d platform thanking the Saudi leadership for the warm reception. This suggests that the Saudi leadership presented a vision it intends to submit to the Sovereign Council and the army leadership. It is also likely that Saudi Arabia has refrained from disclosing details of the talks to avoid disrupting the process. The mediator, it appears, is not seeking to impose a particular leadership; its primary concern is stopping the war first, followed by addressing the political question.<\/p>\n

Another notable point is the speed with which the UAE announced the death of Abdul Rahim Dagalo, rather than allowing the announcement to come from his brother, Hemeti. To date, Hemeti\u2019s own situation remains unclear. Another question arises as to why a group within the Sudanese Congress Party signed the political statement for the \u201cFounding\u201d declaration to join a political bloc, while the party simultaneously denied the signature. Does this imply that the UAE\u2014said to have orchestrated the \u201cFounding\u201d initiative\u2014asked those individuals to sign in the party\u2019s name? Similarly, reports suggest that the UAE requested Youssef Ezzat to travel to Nyala to serve as an adviser to the head of \u201cFounding.\u201d After his arrest and the uncertainty surrounding his whereabouts, the same individuals were reportedly asked to sign the declaration to assume the role Ezzat was expected to play. The swift denial that the party had signed raises further questions: which faction issued the rejection? Notably, a month before the war, the Sudanese Congress Party began experiencing internal divisions, starting with the Nour al-Din Salah al-Din group, followed by further defections after the outbreak of the conflict. Today, Arabi and his group represent another split, and as the crisis deepens, additional fractures among political forces are likely.<\/p>\n

In reality, the push to halt the war indicates that the paper submitted by the army leadership to the Quad and the U.S. State Department forms the basis of current discussions on a ceasefire. In such an environment, rumors will proliferate, and some actors will present their own proposals as the backbone of the talks in an attempt to obscure public awareness and create political confusion. What ultimately matters is a homeland free of militias, a comprehensive national dialogue involving all political forces, and the complete exclusion of foreign influence from the political process. We ask God for clarity of vision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zein al-Abidin Saleh Abdel Rahman On March 13, 2023, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo\u2014then Vice President of Sudan\u2019s Sovereign Council\u2014visited Asmara and met with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. During that visit, Afwerki told Dagalo that the Sudanese Armed Forces constituted the solid backbone upon which Sudan\u2019s unity and the integrity of its sovereignty rest. He added that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58798","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=58798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58799,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58798\/revisions\/58799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}