Sudanese parties failed to attend meeting brokered by Quad diplomats

September 3, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – The Quad ambassadors in Khartoum failed to gather on Saturday the main parties to the Sudanese political crisis including the military component, Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and the signatories of the Juba Peace Agreement.

The initiative of the diplomats of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of America comes two months after the withdrawal of the military component from participation in the transitional government.

Also, since last July, the country has witnessed a multiplication of initiatives proposed by political, tribal and civil society entities supporting the involvement of the army with a supreme military council.

Several FFC officials told Sudan Tribune that the agenda of the meeting includes the implementation of the peace agreement, the FFC’s vision to end the coup, the structures of the transitional authority, and the military’s commitment to withdraw from the political process.

While the military component did not take part in the meeting, Minni Minnawi told the organizers that as head of the National Consensus Forces (NCF)’s liaison committee, he would not attend without his partners.

He arrived with JEM leader Gibril Ibrahim, Ali Askouri of the Democratic Alliance for Justice and Ali Osman of the Unionist Party.

The FFC delegation withdrew and declined to participate in the meeting, pointing to the participation of parties that were not supposed to be part of the meeting.

The QUAD’s diplomats seek to support the efforts of the tripartite facilitation mechanism to hold a national dialogue that ends with an agreement over a transitional declaration and the formation of a civilian transitional government.

Sudan has been experiencing a political crisis since the military coup against the FFC government.

At the time, the civilian government demanded the military component hand over the chairmanship of the Sovereign Council and transfer military economic investments to the civilian government.

Two months ago, the leaders of the military government acknowledged that the coup failed to achieve its goal and did not succeed in forming a new government.

(ST)