On August 5, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Sadiq announced during an interview with the press how the government in Khartoum does not intend to participate in the peace meetings promoted by Eritrea for the stabilization of the country’s eastern regions (https://sudantribune.com/article262380/).
Sudanese authorities also ordered the leadership of political and tribal organizations in the eastern regions not to travel to Eritrea at the invitation of President Isaias Afwerki. The minister also added that a request for the organization of peace talks was formally forwarded to the authorities in Khartoum by the local Eritrean embassy, asking for a list of names to be invited, but that this request was not acted upon by the government, having to be understood to have been rejected.
On August 4, a sizeable delegation of political and tribal leaders from eastern Sudan was blocked by Sudanese authorities at the Laffa border post as they tried to reach Eritrea to attend meetings sponsored by President Afwerki (https://eritreahub.org/sudan-halts-beja-delegates-heading-to-eritrean-peace-conference-blocks-isaiass-latest-attempt-to-intervene-in-neighbour). After a few hours, according to Radio Dabanga reports, the delegation was given permission to avrcare the border briefly to meet with the Eritrean delegation that had arrived to welcome them, and then return to Sudanese territory.
According to reports that have emerged over the past few days, the Sudanese government did not accept Eritrea’s request because it excluded from participation several groups among those who signed the Juba accords, instead including some factions that did not adhere to the agreements, such as a faction of the Popular Front for Liberation and Justice, headed by al-Amin Daoud.
Also reportedly included among those invited to the peace talks was Musa Mohamed Ahmed, a former Omar al-Bashir presidential adviser who signed the 2006 peace accords in eastern Sudan but supported several groups hostile to the signing of the Juba accords.
During an interview reported by the Sudan Telegraph newspaper on Aug. 10 (https://sudantelegraph.com/news/former-ambassador-afwerki-seeks-to-prove-his-influence-in-the-east-and-government-silence-is-weakness/), former ambassador Al-Rashid Abu Shama accused the Sudanese government of weakness and ambiguity in the face of Isaias Afwerki’s request to hold peace talks in the eastern parts of the country, arguing how it is necessary not to grant the Eritrean president any ability to interfere in Sudanese internal affairs.
