Bilateral normalisation talks may materialise

The Sudanese government has agreed in principle to a proposal by the African Union (AU) that the Khartoum government meet its Asmara counterpart, according to Sudanese radio. The radio said on 6 December that the AU had invited the two governments to meet and discuss ways of reducing bilateral tension, which has been high for the past two months following accusations by Sudan that Eritrea was backing rebel forces fighting the government of President Umar al-Bashir. Eritrea has not yet responded to the AU’s invitation, issued earlier this month, but has repeatedly denied backing anti-government rebels in Sudan's 19-year civil war. Several Arab journalists who visited eastern Sudan shortly after a rebel offensive in October reported no evidence of any Eritrean presence in the area. Sudan accused Eritrea of being behind that offensive, a charge which led the Arab League to adopt a resolution last month calling on Eritrea to desist from interfering in Sudan’s internal affairs. Eritrea, which subsequently dismissed the resolution as "unnecessary", for its part accused Sudan of threatening war, and of backing Jihad, an Eritrean hardline anti-government group. Subsequently, in an address to the AU’s mechanism for the resolution of disputes, the Sudanese ambassador to Ethiopia, Uthman al-Sayyid, repeated his government's accusation that Eritrea was backing rebels, and called on the AU to investigate alleged Eritrean aggression along Sudan’s eastern border. He also requested the AU to send observers to the border to monitor the situation. Khartoum's tentative acceptance of the AU proposal comes in spite of the fact that last month Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il ruled out the possibility of Egyptian mediation between his country and Eritrea to cool the war of words between them.