ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey can step in to resolve disputes between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, President Tayyip Erdogan told the head of Sudan’s sovereign council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in a phone call on Friday, the Turkish presidency said.
The Sudanese army has repeatedly accused the UAE of providing weapons and support to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s war. The Gulf state denies this. U.N. sanctions monitors have described as credible accusations that the UAE had given military aid to the RSF.
Erdogan discussed Turkish-Sudanese relations as well as regional and global matters with Burhan in the phone call, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
Erdogan suggested that Turkey step in to resolve disputes between Sudan and UAE, just as it has mediated a dispute between Horn of Africa neighbours Somalia and Ethiopia, it said, without elaborating.
Erdogan also emphasised to Burhan Turkey’s main principles protecting Sudan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, and preventing the country from becoming an arena of foreign intervention, the presidency said.
In a separate statement by Sudan’s governing sovereign council, Burhan said he welcomed any role Turkey could play in ending the war and called for greater Turkish investment in Sudan. “He expressed his confidence in the position of the Turkish president and government in support of the Sudanese people and their choices,” the statement said.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; editing by Mark Heinrich)
