July 24 (UPI) — The United States has invited the warring sides in Sudan’s bloody civil conflict to U.S.-mediated cease-fire talks to be hosted next month in Switzerland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Monday.
The northeast African nation has been subsumed by war for the last 15 months that has internally displaced some 10 million people and thrust a looming famine over the public.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the commander of the breakaway Rapid Support Forces, said that they will participate in the Switzerland talks.
“We affirm our commitment to our people and the international community to participate in the talks on Aug. 14 in Switzerland and look forward to working diligently for a peaceful and democratic future for our country,” he said in a statement.
The Sudanese Armed Forces has yet to publicly respond to the invitation.
According to Blinken, the talks are to be held in Switzerland on Aug. 14 and will include as observers the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations.
“The talks in Switzerland aim to reach a nationwide cessation of violence, enabling humanitarian access to all those in need and develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure implementation of any agreement,” the United States’ top diplomat said in a statement.
The country has for years now suffered from political instability.
Sudan teetered on the precipice of war and security since the military ousted the nation’s former three-decade dictator of Omar al-Bashir in a civilian-backed coup in 2019.
As the country worked — though slowly — toward establishing a democratic government, SAF head Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Dagalo, executed another coup, but infighting between the two over control of Sudan erupted into full-blown conflict on April 15, 2023.
Both the United States and the International Criminal Court have said war crimes have been committed amid the conflict, with Blinken leveling accusations against the RSF and its allied militias of having committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Blinken on Monday stated that the proposed talks will not address the broad political issues. He also called for Sudan’s governance to be return to the public who “must play the leading role in defining a process to address political issues and restore Sudan’s democratic transition.”