By Alexander Cornwell and Timour Azhari
TEL AVIV/RIYDAH (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia’s defacto ruler Mohammed bin Salman is set to press U.S. President Donald Trump to personally intervene to help end the war in Sudan during talks in Washington on Tuesday, five people familiar with the matter said.
The sources — two Arab diplomats and three western diplomats — said the Saudi Crown Prince believed Trump’s direct pressure was needed to break a logjam in talks to end more than two and a half years of war, pointing to his work to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza last month.
The conflict erupted in 2023 amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule. It has caused ethnically-charged bloodletting, widespread destruction and mass displacement, drawing in foreign powers and threatening to split Sudan.
Both the RSF and the army have increasingly relied on drone strikes in recent months, leading to heavy civilian casualties.
In raising the issue with Trump, Saudi Arabia is seeking to appeal to the U.S. president’s view of himself as a peacemaker, the sources said, with Trump having said repeatedly that he was seeking a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to address global conflicts.
The Saudi government’s media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Saudi plan to discuss Sudan with Trump was earlier reported by the Middle East Eye website.
The U.S., the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are members of a group formed to resolve the conflict and informally known as the Quad, though few tangible steps to ending the war have resulted.
For Saudi Arabia, a resolution to the conflict is linked to national security, with hundreds of kilometres of Sudanese coastline lying opposite the kingdom’s Red Sea coast.
Regional rivalry between oil-rich Gulf kingdoms is also at play.
‘WE NEED ACTIONABLE RESULTS,’ RUBIO SAYS
The UAE has been widely accused of backing the RSF, which has faced allegations of genocide for its conduct, most recently during its takeover of the Darfur city of al-Fashir. The UAE has denied backing the RSF, but some U.N. experts and U.S. lawmakers have found the accusation credible, citing evidence in reports by human rights organisations on the supply of weapons.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt are seen as being closer to the Sudanese army.
Asked last week about the UAE’s role in the conflict, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced frustration with the Quad process, though he stopped short of holding any side responsible.
“This needs to stop … We’re not going to let the Quad process that we’ve set up be a shield that people hide behind and say, ‘Well, we’re involved with the Quad. We’re trying to solve it.’ We need actionable results, and they need to happen very quickly,” he said.
The RSF earlier this month accepted a U.S-backed humanitarian ceasefire proposal after an international outcry over accounts that it had killed large groups of civilians as it overran al-Fashir.
The army has not agreed to the ceasefire, which could provide a window for more deliveries of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell and Timour Azhari; Editing by William Maclean)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.