Deby, Hemetti hold talks over border security cooperation
August 4, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – Deputy Chairman of the Sovereign Council, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti” on Thursday paid a short visit to N’Djamena, where he held security talks with Chadian President Mahamat Deby.
The visit comes a day after a meeting in Khartoum between the Chairman of the Sovereign Council in Sudan and the Chadian Minister of Defence, who participated in an annual meeting to evaluate the performance of the Sudanese-Chadian joint border forces.
Also, on August 1, President Deby met with Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi in N’Djamena to discuss the security of the border areas.
Chadian government prepares for a national dialogue conference but peace talks in Doha with the over 30 armed groups failed to yield an agreement until now.
At the same time, Ndjamena accuses some armed groups of seeking the support of the Wagner mercenary group, a private Russian military contractor, to topple the regime. Also, some anti-French protests were organized recently in Chad to denounce its support for Deby’s regime.
In a statement released at the end of the visit, the Chadian presidency said that Deby and Hemetti held a two-hour closed-door meeting
The two statesmen spoke behind closed doors for two hours to discuss bilateral relations and ways to strengthen the joint border forces, cross-border security and the use by Chad of the Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
We “agreed on the need to further strengthen the role of the Chad-Sudan Joint Force to secure the common border and the movement of goods and people between the two countries,” said Hemetti according to a statement issued by the Chadian presidency.
The joint force was established in January 2010, to stop cross-border attacks by armed groups from both sides after a reconciliation agreement between the two countries.
Recently several reports spoke about a growing concern in Ndjamena about Hemetti’s close relationship with Wagner Group, which operates in the Central African Republic in support of President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
The Deputy Chairman of the Sovereign Council was accompanied by the head of the Military Intelligence Agency, Mohamed Ali Sabir, and the Director of the General Intelligence Service, Ahmed Ibrahim Mofaddal.
In February 2022, Chad accused Timan Erdimi, head of the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR), of seeking Wagner’s support.
Erdimi, who is from the same ethnic group as President Deby, was forced to leave Darfur to reside in Doha after the reconciliation agreement of 2010 between Sudan and Chad. However, his supporters and allied groups are moving between Darfur and Libya.
Some UFR factions are reluctant to sign the Doha-brokered agreement scheduled on August 8, ahead of the national dialogue conference on August 20.
(ST)