Urgency of crisis demands quick action
Returning from a month-long holiday in the US, I was immediately struck by the urgency of the pollution crisis as I landed in Delhi, past midnight this week.
The Sudanese government has voiced rejection of US calls to return to the Jeddah negotiation platform between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“The invitation by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for Chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan to go to the Jeddah negotiation platform embodies contempt for Sudan and cannot be accepted,” said Malik Agar, Deputy Chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, on Wednesday.
He made the remarks while addressing a political conference in Port Sudan, the capital city of the Red Sea State in eastern Sudan, Xinhua news agency reported.
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“Sudan has not and will not agree to go to Jeddah, not because we do not want peace, but because peace must have foundations. We will not accept that without being consulted,” Agar added.
He noted that the current phase cannot stand interference of political parties with their different agendas, stressing that the priority must be given to ending the conflict and achieving stability before moving towards national consensus via Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue.
Earlier, Blinken had a phone conversation with Al-Burhan, during which he called for ending the conflict in Sudan, allowing humanitarian access, and resuming the Jeddah negotiations, according to a statement by the Sovereign Council on Wednesday.
On May 6, 2023, Saudi Arabia and the US put forward a peace initiative in Jeddah as the first serious attempt to end fighting in Sudan, which was later known as the Jeddah negotiation platform.
Since then, several truces have been reached and breached, with the two sides accusing each other of violating them.
The Jeddah negotiations were suspended last December over fundamental differences between the Sudanese warring parties.
Sudan has been witnessing deadly clashes between the SAF and the RSF since April 15, 2023, which have killed 15,550 people and displaced 8.8 million others so far, according to the latest estimates by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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