Sudan declares UN envoy Volker Perthes ‘persona non grata’

Volker Perthes (C), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, oversees the evacuation of internationally-recruited personnel in Port Sudan on April 25, 2023 amid a US-brokered ceasefire between the country's warring generals. (AFP)
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Updated 09 June 2023
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Sudan declares UN envoy Volker Perthes ‘persona non grata’

KHARTOUM: The Sudanese government has declared United Nations envoy Volker Perthes “persona non grata,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
“The Government of the Republic of Sudan has notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations that it has declared Mr. Volker Perthes ... persona non grata as of today,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday, just weeks after army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan accused Perthes of stoking the country’s conflict and requested his removal.
Perthes was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday for a series of diplomatic talks, according to the UN mission’s Twitter feed.
Since late last year, Perthes and the UN mission he heads in war-torn Sudan have been targeted by military and Islamist-backed protests denouncing perceived foreign interference.
In a letter to the UN last month, Sudan’s de facto leader Burhan blamed the envoy for exacerbating fighting between the army and the paramilitaries, accused him of not respecting “national sovereignty” and demanded he be replaced.
UN chief Antonio Guterres and members of the UN Security Council have stood by Perthes.
But last week, the Security Council voted to extend the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS)’s mandate for just six months.
Created in June 2020 to support Sudan’s democratic transition after the fall of Omar Al-Bashir a year earlier, UNITAMS had previously been renewed annually for a year.
 


US embassy in Kuwait was struck by drones: three diplomats to AFP

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US embassy in Kuwait was struck by drones: three diplomats to AFP

KUWAIT: The US embassy in Kuwait was struck by drones, three diplomatic sources told AFP after smoke was seen rising from the diplomatic mission earlier on Monday.
One Kuwait-based diplomat and a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the embassy had been damaged by a number of drones while a second Kuwait-based diplomat said the embassy building had been struck directly in the attack.
As an AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from the diplomatic mission on Iran’s third day of retaliatory Gulf attacks, the US embassy said that people should not come to the facility, warning of “a continuing threat of missile and UAV (drone) attacks over Kuwait.”