Sudanese Army, Paramilitary RSF to Return to Jeddah Negotiations

Smoke rises over Khartoum, Sudan, on June 8, 2023, as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues. (AP)
Smoke rises over Khartoum, Sudan, on June 8, 2023, as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues. (AP)
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Sudanese Army, Paramilitary RSF to Return to Jeddah Negotiations

Smoke rises over Khartoum, Sudan, on June 8, 2023, as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues. (AP)
Smoke rises over Khartoum, Sudan, on June 8, 2023, as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continues. (AP)

Sudan's army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces will return to the negotiating table in Jeddah on Thursday, senior US State Department officials said, as a six-month war has taken its toll on the country and on both forces.

The Sudanese army said on Wednesday it accepted the invitation as "negotiations are one of the means that may end the conflict," but that it would not stop fighting. The RSF did not immediately have a statement, but on Wednesday published video of its second-in-command leading soldiers in Nyala, a major war zone.

Fighting broke out in mid-April over plans to integrate troops, four years after the two forces ousted President Omar al-Bashir, and 18 months after they led a coup to oust civilian partners.

Since then, fighting has decimated the capital and other major cities, displacing almost 6 million people and killing thousands.

The United States and Saudi Arabia suspended talks in June after numerous ceasefire violations

"Both sides privately indicated that they are ready to resume talks," said one of the US officials, adding that months of fighting and a humanitarian crisis had weighed on both sides.

Eyewitnesses say that the pace of fighting has slowed in the past week, with both sides resorting to long-range artillery that have rained projectiles on residential neighborhoods.

Military sources say the army has struggled to make repairs to aging warplanes while the RSF has struggled to treat wounded soldiers. Both have had difficulty paying their exhausted forces, the sources said.

The African Union and regional body IGAD would be joining the Jeddah talks, which would initially focus on humanitarian issues, ceasefires, and confidence-building measures in order to lay the groundwork for a negotiated solution to the conflict.

Civilian leaders, who have been holding organizing meetings in Addis Ababa this week, would not be participating in the initial rounds but could be brought in later, as one of the officials said that both sides' failure to protect civilians made clear they were no longer fit to rule the country going forward.

The army's second in command, General Shams el-Din Kabbashi, emerged from the capital earlier this week for the first time since fighting started. In a video, he said the army was ready for negotiations, but "we will not let bygones be bygones."

Despite the army's willingness to talk, diplomats and Sudanese sources say Bashir loyalists, who have heavy influence in the military, reject negotiations and would prefer to continue to rebuild influence as fighting continues.



Syria’s National Dialogue Conference Is in Flux Amid Pressure for Political Transition 

03 January 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa stands during a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus. (dpa)
03 January 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa stands during a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus. (dpa)
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Syria’s National Dialogue Conference Is in Flux Amid Pressure for Political Transition 

03 January 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa stands during a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus. (dpa)
03 January 2025, Syria, Damascus: Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa stands during a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus. (dpa)

An official with the committee preparing a national dialogue conference in Syria to help chart the country's future said Friday that it has not been decided whether the conference will take place before or after a new government is formed.

The date of the conference has not been set and the timing "is up for discussion by the citizens," Hassan al-Daghim, spokesperson for the committee, told The Associated Press in an interview in Damascus Friday.

"If the transitional government is formed before the national dialogue conference, this is normal," he said. On the other hand, he said, "the caretaker government may be extended until the end of the national dialogue."

The conference will focus on drafting a constitution, the economy, transitional justice, institutional reform and how the authorities deal with Syrians, al-Daghim said. The outcome of the national dialogue will be non-binding recommendations to the country’s new leaders.

"However, these recommendations are not only in the sense of advice and formalities," al-Daghim said. "They are recommendations that the President of the republic is waiting for in order to build on them."

After former President Bashir Assad was toppled in a lightning opposition offensive in December, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main former opposition group now in control of Syria, set up an interim administration comprising mainly of members of its "salvation government" that had ruled in northwestern Syria.

They said at the time that a new government would be formed through an inclusive process by March. In January, former HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa was named Syria’s interim president after a meeting of most of the country’s former opposition factions. The groups agreed to dissolve the country's constitution, the former national army, security service and official political parties.

The armed groups present at the meetings also agreed to dissolve themselves and for their members to be absorbed into the new national army and security forces. Notably absent was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which holds sway in northeastern Syria.

There has been international pressure for al-Sharaa to follow through on promises of an inclusive political transition. UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said this week that formation of a "new inclusive government" by March 1 could help determine whether Western sanctions are lifted as the country rebuilds.

Al-Daghim said the decisions taken in the meeting of former opposition factions in January dealt with "security issues that concern the life of every citizen" and "these sensitive issues could not be postponed" to wait for an inclusive process.

In recent weeks, the preparatory committee has been holding meetings in different parts of Syria to get input ahead of the main conference. Al-Daghim said that in those meetings, the committee had heard a broad consensus on the need for "transitional justice and unity of the country."

"There was a great rejection of the issue of quotas, cantons, federalization or anything like this," he said.

But he said there was "disagreement on the order of priorities." In the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartous, for instance, many were concerned about the low salaries paid to government workers, while in Idlib and suburbs of Damascus that saw vast destruction during nearly 14 years of civil war, reconstruction was the priority.

The number of participants to be invited to the national conference has not yet been determined and may range from 400 to 1,000, al-Daghim said, and could include religious leaders, academics, artists, politicians and members of civil society, including some of the millions of Syrians displaced outside the country.

The committee has said that the dialogue would include members of all of Syria's communities, but that people affiliated with Assad's government and armed groups that refuse to dissolve and join the national army -- chief among them the SDF -- would not be invited.

Al-Daghim said Syria's Kurds would be part of the conference even if the SDF is not.

"The Kurds are a component of the people and founders of the Syrian state," he said. "They are Syrians wherever they are."