Hamza Hendawi | The National
Sudan‘s military-led Sovereign Council said on Saturday that an agreement has been reached with opposition groups on ending the country’s months-long political crisis.
Details of the deal and date for its signing would be announced later, it said.
The announcement came nearly 10 weeks after the military and the main opposition coalition, Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), reached a preliminary agreement to restore the country’s democratic transition, derailed by an October 2021 coup led by army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.
The December 4 deal provided for the military to quit politics and for a civilian prime minister to be named to steer the country for 24 months until elections are held.
But it left completing important issues, including transitional justice and the restructuring of the armed forces and security agencies, for later. Those negotiations began last month.
“There has been an agreement on the final version of a political declaration after a comprehensive discussion carried out in a high patriotic spirit that paid heed to the nation’s interests, as well as the success of the democratic transition period,” said a statement by the ruling Sovereign Council.
The council said the deal was reached after three days of negotiations involving Gen Al Burhan, his deputy, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and civilian signatories to the December 4 deal.
Parties who did not sign the December deal were involved in the negotiations over the past three days, it said.
Saturday’s announcement followed the arrival in Khartoum of envoys from the US, Britain, France, Norway and Germany, some of Sudan’s main backers. They joined delegates from the UN, African Union and the regional IFAD group, to meet the senior generals and political stakeholders earlier this week.
debt forgiveness suspended by the West and international financial agencies in response to the October 2021 coup.
It unleashed a wave of street protests that left more than 120 people dead and 6,000 injured and plunged the country into its deepest economic crisis in living memory.