Sudan Peace Negotiations to Resume in Jeddah Thursday

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, receiving Deputy Commander of SAF, Shamseddine al-Kabashi (Sudanese Armed Forces)
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, receiving Deputy Commander of SAF, Shamseddine al-Kabashi (Sudanese Armed Forces)
TT

Sudan Peace Negotiations to Resume in Jeddah Thursday

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, receiving Deputy Commander of SAF, Shamseddine al-Kabashi (Sudanese Armed Forces)
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, receiving Deputy Commander of SAF, Shamseddine al-Kabashi (Sudanese Armed Forces)

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) said Sunday it will resume Thursday the peace talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The Deputy Commander of SAF, Shamseddine al-Kabashi, announced that the army was invited to Jeddah to resume negotiations.

"Our delegation will go to Jeddah and begin negotiations on coming Thursday," he told army officers at Wadi Seidna military base in Omdurman.

The negotiations, which stopped in June, are scheduled to discuss a permanent ceasefire throughout the country, paving the way for the start of a political process with the participation of political and civil forces.

Saudi Arabia and the US are meditating on talks between the two warring parties in Sudan to end the war that has been ongoing since mid-April.

On Saturday, Kabashi left the headquarters of the Army General Command in the center of Khartoum, which the Rapid Support Forces have claimed to besiege since the outbreak of the war.

The media office of the Transitional Sovereign Council reported on Facebook that the Chairman of the Council and Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met with Kabashi in Port Sudan, which has almost become the country's alternative capital due to the ongoing war.

After Kabashi left the General Command, he went directly to the Wadi Seidna military base in the Karari region, north of Omdurman.

He told the forces at the military base that the army would defeat the rebellion all over the country and not just in Khartoum, stressing that the Karari military region would stand against rebellion.

He reassured the army forces deployed across the country that "the situation is getting better day by day."

Earlier, Burhan announced in several interviews on the sidelines of his participation at the UN General Assembly meetings in September that the army was prepared to respond to any mediation to resume talks in Jeddah.

The Saudi-US mediation suspended talks in early June after the Sudanese parties failed to adhere to the second ceasefire and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid to civilians stranded in areas of clashes in Khartoum.

High-ranking sources informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the Director of Sudanese General Intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmed Ibrahim Mufaddal, met RSF's legal advisor Mohammad al-Mukhtar in Addis Ababa earlier this month.

According to the sources, the meeting addressed opening new communication channels between the two parties to return to the Jeddah-sponsored talks.



Italy Plans to Return Ambassador to Syria to Reflect New Diplomatic Developments, Minister Says

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks while meeting with members of the G7, on July 11, 2024, during the NATO summit in Washington. (AP)
Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks while meeting with members of the G7, on July 11, 2024, during the NATO summit in Washington. (AP)
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Italy Plans to Return Ambassador to Syria to Reflect New Diplomatic Developments, Minister Says

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks while meeting with members of the G7, on July 11, 2024, during the NATO summit in Washington. (AP)
Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks while meeting with members of the G7, on July 11, 2024, during the NATO summit in Washington. (AP)

Italy plans to send an ambassador back to Syria after a decade-long absence, the country’s foreign minister said, in a diplomatic move that could spark divisions among European Union allies.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in front of relevant parliamentary committees Thursday, announced Rome’s intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria to prevent Russia from monopolizing diplomatic efforts in the Middle Eastern country.

Moscow is considered a key supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has remained in power despite widespread Western isolation and civilian casualties since the start of Syria’s civil war in March 2011.

Peaceful protests against the Assad government — part of the so-called “Arab Spring” popular uprisings that spread across some of the Middle East — were met by a brutal crackdown, and the uprising quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war.

The conflict was further complicated by the intervention of foreign forces on all sides and a rising militancy, first by al-Qaida-linked groups and then the ISIS group until its defeat on the battlefield in 2019.

The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, is now largely frozen, despite ongoing low-level fighting.

The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus-based government of Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.

In the early days of the conflict, many Western and Arab countries cut off relations with Syria, including Italy, which has since managed Syria-related diplomacy through its embassy in Beirut.

However, since Assad has regained control over most of the territory, neighboring Arab countries have gradually restored relations, with the most symbolically significant move coming last year when Syria was re-admitted to the Arab League.

Tajani said Thursday the EU’s policy in Syria should be adapted to the “development of the situation,” adding that Italy has received support from Austria, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus and Slovakia.

However, the US and allied countries in Europe have largely continued to hold firm in their stance against Assad’s government, due to concerns over human rights violations.