Sudanese parties to resume talks on sovereign council on Monday evening
May 19, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) and opposition Forces for Freedom and Change said they will continue discussions on the formation of the sovereign council on Monday night.
The announcement was made in the early morning of Monday after marathon talks that last for more than six hours on the last sticking point in the talks on the power handover to a civilian-led government.
Speaking to reporters after the suspension of the meeting, TMC spokesperson Shams al-Din Kabbashi said the discussions were about the “formation of the sovereign authority”
Khabbashi further said the two sides reaffirmed commitment to the points they had agreed upon in previous rounds of talks regarding the structure and duration of the Transitional institutions.
The two sides agreed that the transitional period will be for three years, the transitional government will be entirely formed by the Forces for Freedom and Change, and that the majority (67%) of the transitional legislative assembly will be also reserved to the opposition groups that led the over four months protests against the former regime.
Both the military council and the freedom and change forces want to have the majority of the sovereign council. Also, the discussions were about who will lead the council.
Nonetheless, the parties may agree on a rotating presidency.
A source close to the meeting told Sudan Tribune that “parties positions are not far apart” without further details.
Madani Abbas Madani, a spokesperson for the Freedom and Change Forces confirmed for his part that no deal has been reached yet and announced they agreed on the formation of a committee by the freedom and changes forces to follow the investigation conducted by the military council on the recent attacks on the protest sites.
The protesters insist that they had been attacked by the Rapid Support Forces while the military council says the assailants were not part of the Sudanese army forces.
However, the Council admitted that its troops forcefully sought to break up the roadblocks made by the protesters in the streets surrounding the main protest site outside the army headquarters.
(ST)