PORT SUDAN/BRUSSELS: Sudan’s sovereign council, headed by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has said that it was willing to cooperate with the United States and Saudi Arabia to seek peace in the country.
In a statement, the council thanked Washington and Riyadh for “their continued efforts to stop Sudanese bloodshed,” and expressed its “readiness to seriously engage with them to achieve the peace that the Sudanese people hope for.”
It came after US President Donald Trump said he would work with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to end the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
In the Belgian capital, the European Union on Thursday imposed sanctions on the deputy head of RSF over “grave and ongoing atrocities” after the capture of the city of El-Fasher.
The paramilitary RSF, at war with the regular army for more than two years, took control of El-Fasher on October 26, dislodging the army’s last stronghold in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
In the wake of the city’s capture — which came after 18 months of siege, bombardment and starvation — survivors reported executions, pillaging, rape and other atrocities, sparking an international outcry.
The EU said it was imposing a visa ban and asset freeze on RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, whose brother Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo is the group’s leader.
“The European Union condemns in the strongest terms the grave and ongoing atrocities perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, including following the seizure of the city of El Fasher,” the 27-nation bloc said in a statement.
It said ethnically motivated killings and systemic sexual violence “may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Since breaking out in April 2023, Sudan’s civil war has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 12 million, creating what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would start “working” on the war in Sudan after visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked him to help end the conflict.
The Sudanese government, UN experts and international groups have accused the United Arab Emirates of fueling the war by supporting the RSF, accusations denied by Abu Dhabi.
Kallas said the EU has agreed to step up its outreach to countries acting as “enablers” of the conflict to try to help stop the flow of weaponry.
Sudan army chief says ready to cooperate for peace; EU sanctions RSF official for ‘atrocities’
https://arab.news/448wd
Sudan army chief says ready to cooperate for peace; EU sanctions RSF official for ‘atrocities’
- Sudan’s sovereign council thanks US and Saudi Arabia for “their continued efforts to stop Sudanese bloodshed”
- EU freezing asset off RSF second-in-command Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, brother the group’s leader
Turkiye’s Kurdish party says Syria deal leaves Ankara ‘no excuses’ on peace process
- Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq
ANKARA: Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party said on Monday that the Turkish government had no more “excuses” to delay a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) now that a landmark integration deal was achieved in neighboring Syria.
On Sunday in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to come under the control of authorities in Damascus — a move that Ankara had long sought as integral to its own peace effort with the PKK. “For more than a year, the government has presented the SDF’s integration with Damascus as the biggest obstacle to the process,” Tuncer Bakirhan, co-leader of the DEM Party, told Reuters, in some of the party’s first public comments on the deal in Syria.
“The government will no longer have any excuses left. Now it is the government’s turn to take concrete steps.” Bakirhan cautioned President Tayyip Erdogan’s government against concluding that the rolling back Kurdish territorial gains in Syria negated the need for a peace process in Turkiye. “If the government calculates that ‘we have weakened the Kurds in Syria, so there is no longer a need for a process in Turkiye,’ it would be making a historic mistake,” he said in the interview.
Turkish officials said earlier on Monday that the Syrian integration deal, if implemented, could advance the more than year-long process with the PKK, which is based in northern Iraq. Erdogan urged swift integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria’s armed forces. Turkiye, the strongest foreign backer of Damascus, has since 2016 repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb the gains of the SDF — which after the 2011–2024 civil war had controlled more than a quarter of Syria while fighting Islamic State with strong US backing.
The United States has built close ties with Damascus over the last year and was closely involved in mediation between it and the SDF toward the deal.
Bakirhan said progress required recognition of Kurdish rights on both sides of the border.
“What needs to be done is clear: Kurdish rights must be recognized in both Turkiye and Syria, democratic regimes must be established, and freedoms must be guaranteed,” he said.
