El Burhan visits South Sudan ‘to discuss four critical files’

Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, president of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), arrived in Juba, capital of South Sudan, yesterday, to debate “critical issues regarding the relations between the two countries”.

It is El Burhan’s third official go to to South Sudan because the outbreak of the battle between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in mid-April final yr. The normal was acquired at Juba International Airport by South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit and members of the Sudanese diplomatic mission to in Juba.

El Burhan was accompanied by the Minister of Energy and Oil, Mohyieddin Naeem, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Hussein El Amin, and the director normal of the General Intelligence Service (GIS), Lt Gen Ahmed Mufaddal.

According to South Sudanese author and journalist, Ateem Simon, El Burhan’s go to to Juba got here “unannounced”.

The talks between Sudan and South Sudan coated 4 points relating to the relations between the 2 nations, he instructed Radio Dabanga yesterday.

Military escalations

“The visit coincides with military escalations between the SAF and RSF in areas adjacent to the Sudan-South Sudanese border, especially in the areas of Babnis, Joda, and El Jabalein in southern White Nile state,” Simon mentioned.

He added that the combating consists of the oil-rich Heglig (Hejlij) space – which, like neighbouring Abyei, is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan however administered by Sudan.

Pipeline

Another downside issues the pipeline transporting South Sudanese crude oil to the Bashayer Port in Red Sea state.

Since its secession from Sudan in 2011, landlocked South Sudan exports its oil, an important supply of its income, via the pipeline in Sudan, with the Sudanese authorities taking a lower as transit fees.

The transport of the crude oil has been halted, due to technical issues, since February, resulting in main losses for each nations.

South Sudan, which depends on oil for over 90 p.c of its authorities expenditures, has been dropping $100 million per month, based on South Sudan’s former finance minister, Awow Daniel Chuang. Sudan can also be struggling financially, with transit charge losses reportedly estimated at $24 per barrel for the 150,000 barrels of oil that had been transported day by day.

In October, a high-level delegation from South Sudan arrived in Port Sudan to debate the resumption of the oil exports after the pipeline had been repaired.

Simon commented yesterday that the deadline set for resuming the oil exports has handed, “which suggests that there are security problems hindering the resumption of pumping South Sudan’s crude oil through the pipeline”.

‘No government in Sudan’

El Burhan’s go to additionally coincides with statements made by Taban Deng Gai, one of many 4 vice presidents of South Sudan, final week, about Sudan missing a authorities.

Speaking concerning the status of Abyei, an oil-rich space contested by each Sudan and South Sudan, Deng Gai criticised his authorities’s lack of management and significant consideration to the problem, Sudan War Monitor reported today. The matter is now extra pressing, he mentioned, due to deteriorating financial and humanitarian situations within the space.

The Presidency of the Government of South Sudan responded to Deng Gai’s  assertion by saying that they categorical the opinion of the vice chairman and never the opinion of the South Sudanese authorities.

Simon commented that he expects that El Burhan would formally protest these assertion.

El Burhan got here to energy via a joint SAF-RSF coup d’état in opposition to the civilian-led transitional authorities in October 2021. Following the outbreak of the armed battle with the RSF greater than 19 months in the past, the SAF and civilian allies -many of them being associates of the ousted Al Bashir regime- are ruling the nation from Port Sudan.

Peace agreement

The South Sudanese journalist additional instructed Radio Dabanga that El Burhan, as president of the Sovereignty Council, is the guarantor of the “revitalised South Sudan Peace Agreement” beneath which the present transitional authorities in Juba was shaped.

“Although the agreement was signed in 2018 during the rule of Omar Al Bashir, El Burhan has become the de facto guarantor, given that Sudan is the guarantor of the implementation of the agreement,” Simon mentioned.

He linked El Burhan’s go to to Juba to disagreements inside one of many teams that signed the settlement, the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), which determined to take away its member, Hussein Abdelbagi, as vice chairman.

“Changing the group’s candidate requires consultation with Sudan and other parties. A similar disagreement erupted in 2020 and was resolved with the attendance of El Burhan and the approval of Abdelbagi for the position of vice president,” he defined.