Sudan peace talks resume in Saudi Arabia as war rages on

GOOBJOOG NEWS | JEDDAH: Sudan’s Army has sent its representatives to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to take part in peace talks with its nemesis Rapid Support Forces (RSF)  as the war between rival generals entered its fourth month.

“A delegation of the armed forces has returned to Jeddah to resume negotiations with Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels,” a government source told journalists on Saturday.

Last month, the United States and Saudi officials abandoned the talks after a series of violated ceasefires and the latest talks also comes a few days after Egypt launched a mediation process, an effort welcomed both by the Sudanese army, which has close ties to Egypt and the RSF.

The delegation in Saudi Arabia signalled a return to diplomatic efforts by the army, after it boycotted talks last week in Ethiopia hosted by East African regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Khartoum’s foreign ministry had objected to Kenyan President William Ruto’s leadership of the IGAD quartet, accusing Nairobi of siding with the RSF.

Before the Jeddah talks were suspended, US mediators had grown increasingly frustrated with both sides’ reluctance to work towards a sustained truce.

On April 15, a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, burst into an all-out war, killing at least 3,000 and displacing more than three million people.

• By Fauxile Kibet (Additional reporting by agencies)