Khartoum rejects Kenya’s invitation to hold IGAD Quartet meeting on Sudan crisis

By Behram Abdelmunim

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AA) – Sudan on Monday rejected an invitation by Kenya for holding a meeting of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Quartet to discuss the Sudanese crisis.

In a statement, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry deemed the Kenyan invitation for holding a ministerial meeting of the IGAD Quartet unwelcome.

Sudan “is still awaiting a response from East African bloc regarding its objection to Kenya’s chairmanship of the IGAD quartet,” the statement said.

The ministry particularly rejected Kenya’s description of the Sudanese conflict as “a fight between two generals”.

Last week, IGAD announced the formation of a four-way committee headed by Kenya and South Sudan to seek a solution to the conflict in Sudan. Ethiopia and Somalia are members of the committee.

But Khartoum objected to Kenya’s chairmanship of the IGAD Quartet.

Sudan has been ravaged by clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group since April, in a conflict that killed nearly 1,000 people and injured 5,000 others, according to local medics.

At the heart of the ongoing crisis are two opposing military figures: army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.

Since October 2021, when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's transitional government and declared a state of emergency, Sudan has been without a functioning government. The move was widely condemned by political forces as a "coup."

The transitional period, which began in August 2019 following the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir, was originally scheduled to conclude with elections in early 2024.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi