An olive branch from the Emirates
UAE monarch speaks with Sudan's commander-in-chief
Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan spoke by phone Thursday with Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who called for “peaceful dialogue” to end the civil war in Sudan.
The phone call took place just two days after another influential member of Sudan’s military junta, Lt Gen Yasser Al-Atta, condemned the UAE and insulted its ruler, saying, “Mohamed bin Zayed is the devil of the Arabs and a dirty Zionist.”
The UAE is the main international sponsor of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the renegade paramilitary battling the Sudanese military for control of the country. The Gulf monarchy has employed RSF solders as mercenaries in Yemen since 2016.
Abu Dhabi officially has stayed neutral in the Sudanese civil war, which began in April 2023, but unofficially it provided various forms of support to the RSF, including by sheltering RSF leaders and propaganda teams, facilitating an international tour for the RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, evacuating wounded RSF soldiers, and allegedly sending arms shipments to Darfur, via Chad.
The UAE denies giving military aid to the RSF, which was already well-armed before the outbreak of the civil war, and which captured huge stockpiles of equipment from the Sudanese military over the past year.
Despite this, Sudan’s military regime blames the small but wealthy Arab nation for its defeats on the battlefield, claiming that it is not fighting the RSF alone but rather an international conspiracy.
Bin Zayed’s phone call with Al-Burhan was the first known contact between the two leaders since the start of the civil war. Observers are divided over whether the call represents a significant diplomatic breakthrough, which could lead to further peace talks, or is just part of a UAE “whitewashing” effort that will change nothing.
The Sudanese and Emirati governments gave conflicting readouts about the call, with each side saying the other had initiated the contact.