By Theodore Jones –
Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi says Sudan’s crisis can be resolved, with leaders choosing dialogue without external pressure or interference.
On the side-lines of an international conference on Thursday, President Sisi said his country has chosen not to interfere with its neighbour’s political turmoil, but will support all efforts to discuss the problem.
“We have a fixed policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Dialogue is the only way out of the current political crisis in Sudan,” he said in Sharm El-Sheikh city, Egypt’s resort town between the Sinai Peninsula and the Red Sea.
Sisi was in the city to officially open the World Youth Forum, an annual meeting of youth from across the world where they discuss issues such as diversity and “to engage in discussions on development issues, and send a message of peace” from Egypt to the world, according to the Egyptian leader, referring to the forum endorsed by the UN Committee on Social Development.
But the Egyptian leader also wanted to pass a message on the turmoil in the region.
President Sisi, who himself saw his country transit from a political crisis in 2014, said Egypt supports Sudan’s transition process as led by the Sovereign Council to create a clear path for citizens to elect their leaders freely in future.
Sudan, which toppled its long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, has struggled with the transition. The Military under the Sovereign Council had entered a power sharing deal for a transitional government in August 2019, but that government fell in October 2021 after the Council engineered a coup, detaining Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and some of his cabinet.