After declining to attend U.S.-led peace talks that began in Geneva last week, Sudan’s government said it would send a delegation to Cairo for discussions with U.S. and Egyptian officials. The Sudanese government said the talks in Cairo will be exclusively aimed at implementing a previous agreement—the Treaty of Jeddah, signed in May 2023—which Sudan said is a precursor to attending the broader negotiations aimed at ending the civil war. (Reuters)
Our Take
Since the conflict between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, broke out in April 2023, the U.S. and other Western countries have been accused of ignoring the war. Not only are there credible allegations that both sides have committed war crimes, but more broadly, the war has unleashed a massive humanitarian crisis, with more than 10 million people displaced and knock-on effects for the entire region.
And yet, until recently, the West’s efforts to end the conflict seemed pro forma at best. The peace talks that began last week, then, represent a ratcheting up of those efforts on the part of Washington, which is bringing to bear sustained pressure on the warring parties to, at the very least, meaningfully improve the humanitarian situation on the ground and smooth the path toward an eventual cessation of hostilities.