A new Egyptian initiative .. Can Cairo be able to kidnap the settlement file in Sudan?

Al Jazeera Net - Special

Egyptian-sponsored talks between the forces of freedom and change and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front will begin Saturday in Cairo. This initiative comes to gather the Sudanese parties a week before the deadline for the final signing of the constitutional document scheduled for August 17 in Addis Ababa, will the Egyptian role reap the fruits of the efforts made by Ethiopia to the Sudanese settlement?

A senior leader in the forces of change said Cairo would play in the negotiations what he described as a facilitator.

Participants in the Sudanese talks in Cairo on the forces of change are representatives of the five main blocs, most notably Omar al-Dugair from the Sudan Call Bloc, Madani Abbas Madani from the civil society bloc, and Babiker Faisal from the Unionist Union, Ahmed Rabie from the Sudanese Professionals Group, and Ali Sanhouri from the National Consensus bloc.

A delegation comprising SPLM President Malik Aqar, JEM Chairman Jibril Ibrahim, SLM President Mona Minawi, SPLM Vice President Yasser Arman and SPLM-MDC Chairman Dr. Hedi Idris will also participate in the talks.

Cairo on the line
Yasser Arman, the SPLM deputy leader, smiled when he stared at his phone and found Cairo calling him. This was Egypt's entrance by inquiring about the RUF's reservations about the power-sharing agreement between the junta and the forces of change.

After that phone call, Arman made a number of contacts with their angry allies on the Revolutionary Front, telling them Cairo's desire to play a role in healing the hernia between them and their partners in the forces of change.

One of the first enthusiasts of this initiative was JEM President Jibril Ibrahim, who had been deported by Addis Ababa when he accused him of obstructing an agreement, and since then Jibril has seen Addis Ababa as an impartial mediator.

Egypt is looking for an opportunity
It was only a few days until Egypt completed its contacts with all parties to the Sudanese equation, to announce the arrival of Sudanese peace delegations to Cairo.

The Cairo meetings, which kick off on Saturday, were not Egypt's first attempts to play a role in Sudan, especially after the Ethiopian expansion, where Ethiopian Prime Minister Abe Ahmed was the first African leader to land in Khartoum amid a wide welcome from the Sudanese political parties.

Welcoming Abe Ahmed launched an Ethiopian initiative to settle the Sudanese file on June 7th.

The rapid Ethiopian move was the subject of Egyptian diplomacy, which moved quickly and brought together African countries in Cairo on 23 April, prior to the birth of the Ethiopian initiative, where the presidents of Chad, Djibouti, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia, South Africa, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, and representatives of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.

The African Group included a number of countries that were far from the Sudanese issue.

Ould Labat's mission was to monitor the progress of the talks between the Sudanese parties and submit a report to the African Union to assess the situation.

Egypt also tried to find a foothold through the Arab League, which sent its assistant secretary-general, Khalil al-Zorani, to Khartoum on July 3 and his mission ended with memorial photos.

Easy task
A round of negotiations between the forces of change and the Revolutionary Front will not be a difficult task, as a senior leader of the Umma Party revealed to the island that the party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi sent a message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Front reassuring that their negative remarks on the constitutional document will be bypassed and amended before the final signing of the document.

In the same context, the military council issued a decree on Thursday dropped the death sentences issued under the ousted President Omar al-Bashir against a number of leaders of the armed movements, including Malik Aqar and Yasser Arman.

Mahdi's message and the amnesty of the military junta were paving the way for Khartoum to be the appropriate capital to meet the Sudanese parties or even return to Addis Ababa, but Egypt intervened at the right moment taking advantage of the Ethiopian inattention and Addis Ababa's rough handling of Jibril Ibrahim to become the African capital that finalizes the peace agreement.

Highlights of disagreement
The differences between the forces of change and the Revolutionary Front are not insurmountable, as the two sides have already held a long round of dialogue in the Ethiopian capital, which ended with the signing of a document on July 24, along with a number of unspoken understandings.

However, when the delegation of the forces of change found objections that it exceeded its mandate to communicate with the Revolutionary Front, especially in the item of quotas, where the Forces for Change side promised to allocate two seats to the Revolutionary Front in the Council of Sovereignty occupied by two personalities interested in peace nominated by the Front.

The powers of change also objected to a clause requiring that the peace agreement - expected to be signed after the announcement of the new government - take precedence over the provisions of the constitutional document governing the transitional period.

A senior leader in the forces of change and decision-makers in the Umma Party in a special statement to Al Jazeera Net, accused the Revolutionary Front of trying to reserve a seat in front of the train of peace and bypassing other movements such as the Popular Movement led by Abdul Aziz al-Helou.

It was difficult for the same source to fully absorb the Addis Ababa agreement in the constitutional document, especially the clause on the transitional constitution in the womb of the unseen.

But a prominent leader in the forces of change Ibrahim Sheikh, who was part of the delegation of Addis Ababa, believes in a special statement to the island Net that the task is easy, and it is easy to absorb the remarks of the Revolutionary Front in the Constitution document.

Sisi will be there
Cairo's ability to hijack the Sudanese file in overtime will enable President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to attend the final signing ceremony, not as a guest of honor, but as an event maker.

According to informed sources, the invitation to attend the final signing ceremony was limited to three Arab countries - Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - but none of the three countries specified the size of their representation.

Observers, however, confirmed that Sisi would be on the list alongside Ethiopian Prime Minister Abe Ahmed, whose envoy, Mahmoud Darir, confirmed his participation. The participation of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, a number of representatives of the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab League, as well as the men of the diplomatic corps in Khartoum, were also confirmed.

The Cairo round of negotiations will probably not be good news for Addis Ababa, but the margin of movement will be limited, especially since seven days will be a watershed of the final signing of the agreement sponsored by Ethiopia in the cradle of a boy, and it seems that Cairo will reap some of its fruits.