Sudan’s Military Council Calls for Transition Talks to Resume Unconditionally


By Neo Sithole

The head of Sudan’s ruling military council said on Wednesday it was ready to meet an opposition alliance to negotiate the country’s transition towards democracy after talks collapsed following the deadly dispersal of a protest sit-in.

“We are ready to continue negotiations with the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces,” 

Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said. 

“We do not deny its role in the uprising or in the popular revolution, their leadership of the masses.”

Talks between the military council and the DFCF alliance had stalled before collapsing altogether when security forces stormed a protest camp outside the Defense Ministry on June 3, killing dozens.



They had been wrangling for weeks over who would control a sovereign council to lead Sudan to elections: civilians or the military.

Burhan said the alliance should return to talks without preconditions.

“The solution must be satisfactory for all the Sudanese people,” he said. “We pledge to you and pledge to the people that we will not accept any solution that excludes any faction of the Sudanese people.”

The opposition had called for an international inquiry to be opened into the sit-in dispersal before they would rejoin talks.

There have been no direct talks since the dispersal, but Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the African Union have been trying to mediate between the sides.

Umbrella body for Sudanese protest groups, the Forces for Freedom and Change, FCC; have said they will only restart talks with the ruling junta in the presence of a third party.

The Arabic Al Hadath outlet quoted the FCC as saying in a Wednesday press briefing that despite agreeing on the resumption of talks, direct talks were out of the question.

We have communicated to the Ethiopian Prime Minister our unwillingness to engage in direct talks with the TMC.

The TMC did not follow through on its promises to protect protesters and transfer power to civilians,” FCC added whiles rejecting the junta’s probe of the violent dispersal of a sit-in in the capital Khartoum on June 3.

“We reject the one-sided investigation conducted by the TMC on the dispersal of the Khartoum sit-in.” 

The incident led to the suspension of talks by the military. Not even a U-turn hours later stopped civil disobedience that lasted three-days till a successful negotiation by Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed’s Special Envoy

 -JP

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Sudan

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