WASHINGTON: US negotiators taking part in talks in Saudi Arabia aimed at extending a cease-fire between rival armed forces in Sudan are “cautiously optimistic,” US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday, as she faced criticism from senators over the administration’s handling of issues in Sudan.
Testifying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Nuland said she had spoken on Wednesday morning with US officials at the talks that began on Saturday between the army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Both sides have failed to abide by repeated truce deals.
“Our goal for these talks has been very narrowly focused: first securing agreement on a declaration of humanitarian principles and then getting a cease-fire that is long enough to facilitate the steady delivery of badly needed services,” Nuland said.
“If this stage is successful — and I talked to our negotiators this morning who are cautiously optimistic — it would then enable expanded talks with additional local, regional and international stakeholders toward a permanent cessation of hostilities, and then a return to civilian-led rule as the Sudanese people have demanded for years.”
The fighting in Khartoum, which erupted April 15, has prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes and triggered an aid crisis. The people internally displaced within Sudan more than doubled in a week to 700,000, the United Nations’ migration agency said.
Republican and Democratic senators at the hearing questioned Nuland on Washington’s policy toward Sudan, raising the evacuation of Americans since fighting broke out last month and why sanctions were not imposed following the 2021 coup.
The army, under General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, and the RSF under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, had joined forces in the military coup, reconfiguring a planned transition to civilian rule.
But the rival military factions fell out over the transition terms and timing, leading to the sudden explosion of fighting in Khartoum in April.
Nuland said Washington did institute harsh penalties against Sudan that were internally controversial, including suspending bilateral aid and debt relief and imposing sanctions last year on Sudan’s Central Reserve Police. Neither Burhan nor Hemedti are under US sanctions.
Nuland added that Washington was looking at appropriate targets, particularly if the generals do not agree to allow humanitarian aid and a cease-fire, after US President Joe Biden signed an executive order last week laying the groundwork for potential Sudan-related sanctions.
“We have the sanctions tool now that can allow us to continue to pressure them,” she said.
US negotiators at Sudan talks in Jeddah are ‘cautiously optimistic’: Nuland
https://arab.news/64ghb
US negotiators at Sudan talks in Jeddah are ‘cautiously optimistic’: Nuland
- Testifying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Nuland said she had spoken on Wednesday morning with US officials at the talks that began on Saturday
- “If this stage is successful — and I talked to our negotiators this morning who are cautiously optimistic,” she said
Saudi Arabia increasingly concerned by Israel’s impact on regional instability: Experts
- Middle East Institute hosts panel discussion attended by Arab News
CHICAGO: Experts on Wednesday noted Saudi Arabia’s increased concern over Israel’s regional conduct during a panel discussion hosted by the Middle East Institute and attended by Arab News.
F. Gregory Gause III, professor emeritus of international affairs at the Bush School of Government at Texas A&M University, said Israel rather than Iran has become the more immediate worry for the Kingdom.
“I think there’s a real worry that post-Oct. 7 it’s the Israelis, not the Iranians, who might be the fomenters of instability in Syria, in Lebanon, even with the attack on Doha,” he said.
Saudi Arabia’s priority is achieving “stability in the region,” and it believes that closer relations with the US can achieve that, he added.
Former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney said the Kingdom’s concerns have pushed it to seek closer ties to the US through President Donald Trump, who has been more responsive than his predecessor Joe Biden.
During his recent visit to Washington, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “got everything he wanted” for Saudi Arabia’s interests, Ratney said, adding that his priority is to make the Kingdom a lynchpin of regional stability.
The Saudis “are more positive about the relationship with the US than I think a lot of people here realize,” Ratney said. “They genuinely want their entire strategic outlook anchored in the US.”
Dr. Karen E. Young, a senior MEI fellow, said the Saudis have a growing concern for how regional instability impacts their economic advances under the Vision 2030 reform plan.
“Certainly there’s concern for the neighborhood, but in new ways and more geared toward what instability in the region means for economic development, tourism, logistics, trade and even connectivity, whether it’s in trading and selling electricity or perhaps in the transfer of data,” she added. “So they need calm, and that means on both sides of the Red Sea.”
