Sudanese generals Abdel Fattah al-Buran and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, have agreed to meet, announced the communiqué of the regional organization of the Horn of Africa (Igad) on Sunday December 10, following an extraordinary Summit in Djibouti. It’s an unprecedented diplomatic breakthrough for Igad to end the war in Sudan, which has been going on for seven months. All talks to date have failed, including those held in Jeddah under the aegis of Washington and Riyadh.
The two men agreed to meet within a fortnight, an appointment that seemed unimaginable less than a week earlier, when the Jeddah talks came to a halt. Igad has thus achieved a notable diplomatic breakthrough.
For the first time since the beginning of the conflict, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was present at this extraordinary summit. As for Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, he spoke on the telephone with the organization’s heads of state, according to the communiqué.
On its X page (formerly known as Twitter), the Sovereign Transitional Council confirms General al-Burhan’s commitment to signing a ceasefire, a proposal also accepted by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo in a letter published on the same social network.
The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has declared some 15 diplomats from the United Arab Emirates persona non grata, according to an announcement by the official Suna news agency on Sunday December 10.
Tensions have been running high between the two countries ever since a senior army officer accused Abu Dhabi of supplying arms to the RSF last week. Demonstrations took place in the streets of Port Sudan, which has become the country’s administrative capital since the conflict, to demand the departure of the Emirati ambassador. The 15 expelled diplomats now have 48 hours to leave Sudan.