KHARTOUM - Coinciding with indirect negotiations in the Saudi city of Jeddah, clashes between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum have eased, in a move that observers considered a maneuver and bowing to international and regional pressure.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the talks aim to set a timetable for expanded negotiations that allow a permanent cessation of hostilities in Sudan, as well as to facilitate the arrival of emergency humanitarian aid and the restoration of basic services.
Washington and Riyadh have been active in mediating between the army and the Rapid Support during the last two weeks, and the parties to the conflict accepted the extension of the truce 3 times, at the request of the mediators, although it was not respected, prompting the two capitals to invite them to Jeddah to stabilize the truce and create a positive atmosphere, allowing its subsequent development into a permanent ceasefire under international control, according to an official in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry who spoke with Al Jazeera Net.
The Sudanese official said that Riyadh sent a plane to Khartoum to transport the government delegation, which included Major General Abu Bakr Faqiri, Major General Muhammad Mahjoub and Ambassador Omar Siddiq, while the delegation of the Rapid Support Forces came from a Gulf capital headed by Brigadier General Omar Hamdan, an army officer who was among the seconded to the Rapid Support Forces (numbering 480 officers) and they all returned to the army at the beginning of the clashes except for 5 of them, and the delegation also included Fares Al-Nour, advisor to the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Muhammad Hamdan Daglo (Hemedti), and his younger brother, Major Al-Koni Hamdan Dagalo.
Mediation Members
In this context, sources close to the Jeddah negotiations revealed to Al Jazeera Net that they began last Saturday indirectly as stipulated by the army, and the mediators expected to last two days, but it was extended to an unspecified time to discuss the installation of the truce to a specific period of time, and the delivery of humanitarian aid to those affected by the war and the flow of services to the residents of Khartoum State, and then agree on a new round of negotiations to stop hostilities and determine the monitoring mechanism.
The United States named its representatives to the mediation team from its embassy in Riyadh and the military attaché, the U.S. ambassador in Khartoum, and a coordinator from the National Security Council, while Saudi Arabia identified a team from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Military Intelligence.
The negotiations were joined by the head of the United Nations Transition Support Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Peretz, representing the tripartite mechanism that sponsors the political process in Sudan, which includes the international organization, the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths.
Army conditions
The Sudanese army delegation handed the mediation team documents, photos and videos of what it considered the Rapid Support Forces' violations against civilians, including their control of 22 hospitals, turning them into military barracks, expelling their medical staff, evacuating patients, some of whom were in intensive care rooms, deploying armed men in central drug warehouses, looting pharmacies, vandalizing water and electricity stations, and others, according to a member of a team monitoring the negotiations.
The observer told Al Jazeera Net that army representatives set conditions for the installation of the truce, including: the exit of the Rapid Support Forces from residential neighborhoods, the removal of dozens of fulcrum points that they deployed, and the withdrawal from the center of Khartoum and the civil and service institutions that they controlled, most notably the main control center for electricity and the jelly oil refinery in northern Khartoum North.
The army's conditions also included the grouping of the Rapid Support Forces after their withdrawal in a single camp whose distance the army agrees to distance from the capital, until steps are agreed on to integrate them into the military institution, and a pledge not to interfere with the withdrawing forces.
Regarding humanitarian aid, the army welcomed any humanitarian support, but demanded that the government approve its contents in advance so that no prohibited materials would leak through it, define a mechanism supervised by the Humanitarian Aid Commission, and cooperate with United Nations agencies and national voluntary organizations to distribute it to those affected.
Rapid Support Demands
In return, the RSF handed the mediators a list it called "army violations", which included what it described as "indiscriminate shelling of civilian sites and targets, which led to the destruction of dozens of homes and the death of hundreds of civilians."
The RSF delegation called for international monitoring of their withdrawal from civilian institutions and sites, allowing the assembly of their forces, vehicles and military vehicles in the bases where they were before mid-April, the date of the outbreak of confrontations, staying in the military and sovereign sites where they are currently located, treating their wounded in specific hospitals, and allowing the travel of those who need treatment outside the country.
The demands also included the continued payment of the benefits and salaries of the Rapid Support Forces from the Ministry of Finance, the cessation of the use of warplanes and the movement of army forces after the agreement to stabilize the truce and impose international monitoring in this regard, and guarantees of the safe exit of their leaders to the destination they specify.
On the humanitarian side, the RSF representatives called for their involvement in securing humanitarian access and the mechanism for its distribution, in accordance with agreed standards and controls.
Intervention to rescue
Observers of the indirect negotiations in Jeddah noted that the two negotiating parties do not have a full mandate to make any mutual concessions in order to reach an understanding, and that they are sticking to their positions, which are still far apart, "as if they are using the negotiation as a maneuver to gain time in order to change the military reality on the ground," as some of them put it.
It is likely that the mediators will prepare within two days a document for a draft agreement on the truce and humanitarian aid, after narrowing the points of disagreement and communicating with the army and rapid support leaders, and requesting the intervention of influential parties on the two parties to convince them of the futility of relying on military decisiveness, especially with its high cost to the Sudanese people and its serious repercussions on the future of the country and its neighbors.