Has Washington pressed Saudi Arabia and the UAE to facilitate the Sudan agreement?

Al Jazeera Net - Private

The United States may have exerted pressure on both the UAE and Saudi Arabia to ease the way for an agreement in the Sudan and to stop supporting the transitional military junta and limiting it to the forces of freedom and change, sources in the Sudanese opposition told Al-Jazeera Net.

The sources quoted US special envoy to Sudan Donald Booth, who visited Khartoum on Monday and met with the head of the military junta, Abdul-Fattah al-Burhan and opposition leaders, as saying that this time he saw a significant change in the civilian transition.

Booth added that he spoke with the military about the issue of absolute immunity contained in the proposed agreement and that he felt that they were not sticking to it.

Booth is expected to stay in Khartoum for a few days and then go to Riyadh to complete consultations with the Saudi leadership on how to support Sudan in the next phase.

For his part, says the writer Mohammed Hamid Juma that Booth, when he visited Khartoum last time was able to generate momentum in the negotiations after a tour of Saudi Arabia.

He added in an interview for Al Jazeera Net that "Washington will push towards a compromise solution will be closer to the perceptions of the military in the aspect of security responsibility based on past fears."

Terrorist list
The talk about the demand to remove Sudan from the US-sponsored list of state sponsors of terrorism was strongly present at the Booth meeting with opposition leaders, but he told them it was up to the formation of a civilian government, especially since the resolution was more to the US Congress than the executive branch of the US government.

According to sources Al Jazeera Net, Booth pointed to the importance of the existence of an official channel represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister to enable Congress to communicate and deal with the lifting of the name of Sudan from the black list.

The US envoy suggested that a delegation of the civil government, once formed, go to Washington to meet with Congress and work to persuade him to remove Sudan from the list.

The Booth meetings in Khartoum coincide with moves by Congress, which began to loom of sanctions if the military refused to hand over power to a civilian government.

The US House of Representatives passed on Monday the so-called "Keldi project" to defend democracy and peace in Sudan, which calls on the Sudanese government to transfer power to a government led by civilians, respect democratic principles and end all forms of violence against citizens.