Sudan 'suspends' cooperation with Igad
This combination of pictures created on April 18, 2023 shows Sudan's army chief, Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (left) and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Sudan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it was suspending all interactions with the regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), presumably ending the latest peace bid to end the country's war.
The ministry, which has recently been critical of Igad, said it would no longer cooperate with the bloc on any Sudanese issue.
The announcement came just 47 hours before Igad was due to hold an extraordinary meeting in Entebbe, Uganda to discuss Sudan's war.
Khartoum had already said it would not attend the summit because Igad had invited Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of Rapid Support Forces' leader, which the junta in Khartoum regards as a militia.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry informed the Foreign Minister of Djibouti, chairman of the Igad Ministerial Council --Djibouti is considered as the chairman of the current Igad session-- that the government of Sudan had decided to cease its engagement and to freeze its dealings with Igad regarding the current crisis file in Sudan.
This is due to the violations committed by the organisation by including the situation in Sudan on the agenda of the 42 extraordinary summit of Igad heads of state and government scheduled to be held in Entebbe on Thursday, January 18, 2024, without consulting Sudan and inviting the leader of the so-called militia to attend the emergency summit in Kampala.
Hemedti
The Sudanese government also said that the invitation of the RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti", to attend the summit was "a violation of Sudan's sovereignty and a serious breach of the IGAD Charter and the rules governing the work of international and regional organisations".
This comes after the Sovereignty Council, headed by army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced on Saturday that it had rejected an invitation from Igad to hold a summit to discuss the country's situation in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Hemedti announced that he would attend the Igad summit in Entebbe.
The President of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh, who is chairing the current Igad session, called on the organisation's members to hold an extraordinary summit in Uganda at the end of this week to discuss the situation in Sudan and the dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia, as part of the organisation's intensified efforts to pressure both sides in the military conflict in Sudan to sign a cessation of hostilities agreement that would help deliver humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict.
