Sudan sending delegation to Cairo to meet US and Egyptian mediators
PHOTO CAPTION: A Sudanese national flag is attached to a machine gun of Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soldiers as they wait for the arrival of Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military council and head of RSF, before a meeting in Aprag village 60, kilometers away from Khartoum, Sudan, June 22, 2019. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
DUBAI (Reuters) - Sudan's government said it will send a delegation to Cairo for discussions with U.S. and Egyptian officials on Monday, keeping open the question of participation in peace talks aimed at ending a 16-month war.
The government, controlled by the army which is fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for control of the country, has said it would not attend the peace talks in Switzerland unless a previous agreement struck in Jeddah is implemented.
The US-led talks, which the RSF is attending, aim to end the devastating war that broke out in April 2023, and address the crippling humanitarian crisis that has left half of Sudan's population of 50 million facing food insecurity.
A statement from the ruling Transitional Sovereign Council said the decision to go to Cairo came after contacts with the US special envoy and the Egyptian government, which is an observer in the talks, and was limited to discussing implementation of the Jeddah agreement, under which the RSF would leave civilian areas.
High-level government sources told Reuters that the government had presented its vision on that and other topics to US and Saudi mediators, and that its approach to further talks would be based on their response.
The sources denied media reports that the government had already sent a delegation to Geneva.
Another sticking point for the army is the presence of the United Arab Emirates, which it accuses of supporting the RSF, a charge the UAE denies. U.N. experts have found such accusations credible.
The army on Thursday pre-empted a key topic of the talks when it said it would allow an RSF-controlled border crossing into Darfur to be used for aid deliveries.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had agreed to the opening during a phone call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken the day before.
(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz and Clauda Tanios; additioanl reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
