On Monday, the leadership of the Transitional Sovereign Council in Sudan held talks with German and French officials about the political crisis in the country.
Since October 25, 2021, Sudan has witnessed protests calling for “full civilian rule” and rejecting exceptional measures taken by the army chief, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, most notably the imposition of a state of emergency and the dissolution of the Sovereignty Councils and the Transitional Ministers.
Al-Burhan, head of the Sovereign Council, held two separate meetings in Khartoum with the Director of the Africa and Middle East Department at the German Foreign Ministry, Philip Ackermann, and the French envoy to the Horn of Africa, Frederic Calver, according to a statement of the council.
Al-Burhan briefed Ackerman and Calver on “the government’s vision to overcome the political and economic crisis and achieve stability.”
Ackermann affirmed Berlin’s readiness to “cooperate with the Sudanese government to be part of the solution and to face political and economic challenges.”
Calver called “all sectors of the (Sudanese) people to engage in the dialogue process led by the United Nations and the African Union,” according to the statement.
In exchange for accusations of carrying out a “military coup”, Al-Burhan said that he had taken his exceptional measures to “correct the course of the transitional period”, and pledged to hand over power through elections or a national consensus.
The Vice-President of the Sovereignty Council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), also met, on Monday, with the French envoy, according to a second statement of the council.
Hemedti said: “Our hands are extended to all in order to achieve national reconciliation through a dialogue that includes all political forces.”
He called on the international community to “continue its support for the Sudanese parties in order to achieve stability.”
Calver stressed that “the stability of the situation in Sudan will reflect on the stability of the entire region.”
Before the exceptional measures, Sudan had been living since August 21, 2019 in a transitional phase that ends with holding elections in early 2024.
Power is shared during that stage by the army, civilian forces and armed movements that signed a peace agreement with the government in 2020.
