UAE, Saudi welcome new leader, extend aid to Sudan

President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has directed to communicate with Sudan’s transitional military council to explore the prospects of accelerating aid for the brotherly people of Sudan.

According to Saudi Press Agency (SPA) Saudi Arabia has said that it “stands by the Sudanese people” and calls on all Sudanese “to give priority to the national interest” of their country.

Saudi King Salman has also ordered an unspecified package of aid for Sudan, reported SPA.

The UAE has welcomed the appointment of  Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan Abdelrahman as the new head of Sudan’s transitional military council.

Sudanese demonstrators gather during a rally in Khartoum recently. File/AFP

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation described the development as a “step forward reflecting the ambitions of the brotherly people of Sudan towards security, stability and development.”

“The UAE is following with a great interest this defining moment in Sudan’s modern history and reiterates full trust in the ability of the Sudanese people and their national army to survive the challenges in a way that ensures stability, prosperity and development for the nation,” added the statement.

“The UAE reaffirms its support for the steps taken by Sudan’s transitional military council to protect people and property, wishing these steps would ensure security and stability for the sisterly country.”

The statement adds that the UAE wishes all political, factional, popular and military leaders in the Republic of Sudan will work for protecting legitimacy and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power, a better future for the nation and national unity for the people of Sudan.

Meanwhile, Sudanese protesters on Sunday demanded the country’s military rulers “immediately” hand power over to a civilian government that should then bring ousted leader Omar Al Bashir to justice.

Thousands remained encamped outside Khartoum’s army headquarters to keep up pressure on a military council that took power after ousting Bashir on Thursday.

On Sunday the organisation which spearheaded the protests against Bashir, the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), called on the military council “to immediately transfer power to a civilian government.”

The SPA also demanded the next “transitional government and the armed forces to bring Bashir and all the chiefs of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS)... to justice.”

Earlier the military council met with political parties and urged them to agree on an “independent figure” to be the country’s prime minister, a media correspondent present at the meeting said.

“We want to set up a civilian state based on freedom, justice and democracy,” a council member, Lieutenant General Yasser Al Ata, told several political parties, urging them to agree on the figures to sit in civilian government.

The protesters have insisted civilian representatives must join the military council.

A 10-member delegation representing the protesters delivered their demands during talks with the council late on Saturday, according to a statement by the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group spearheading the rallies.

The foreign ministry urged the international community to back the military council “to achieve the Sudanese goal of democratic transition,” it said in a statement.

The council chief General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan was “committed to having a complete civilian government and the role of the council will be to maintain the sovereignty of the country,” it added.

Talks between protest leaders and Sudan’s new rulers were followed Sunday by a meeting between Washington’s top envoy to Khartoum, Steven Koutsis, and the military council’s deputy.

Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, widely known as Himeidti, told Koutsis “about the measures taken by the military council to preserve the security and stability of the country,” the official SUNA news agency reported.

Himeidti is a field commander for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) counter-insurgency unit, which rights groups have accused of abuses in the war-torn Darfur region.

Agencies