Sudan urges Trump to designate RSF a terrorist entity as it rules out UAE-linked peace proposals

Sudan's ambassador to the US, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, urged the Trump administration on Friday to designate the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a terrorist organisation, while making it clear his country would not accept a UAE-affiliated peace deal to end the civil war, which is now in its third year.

Calling Abu Dhabi's support for the RSF "destructive", Idris said that Sudan could not accept a peace proposal that involves the UAE as a key party.

"It's unacceptable to us, yes," he told reporters at a press briefing organised by the embassy in Washington.

This is despite the UAE being a member of the so-called "Quad", which also comprises the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The group recently unveiled a coordinated roadmap aimed at ending Sudan's catastrophic war.

"As far as the American proposal is concerned, we are studying it and discussing it with our American partners, and we appreciated the American role," Idris said. "We, the government of Sudan, welcome any effort to stop the war."

Save for one actor.

"The United Arab Emirates is a party to the conflict, so it cannot play both roles - become a party, and then become a mediator, no." 

The Quad's peace push, announced last month, represented a significant elevation of US engagement. 

"If you compare the American role today with what it was two or three months ago, we feel that now there is a concerted effort towards finding a solution [and] more being put on the enablers," the ambassador said.

He did not specify what that implied pressure looked like.

He later told Middle East Eye that Sudan would like to see US President Donald Trump get more personally involved.

"We want him. You saw his direct involvement as he did in other seven conflicts, as he said. We want to see the same role being played in Sudan, and the shortcut is to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates to stop enabling the Janjaweed." 

The Janjaweed, which carried out the genocide in Darfur more than two decades ago, is where the RSF finds its roots. 

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In March, based on intelligence shared by the former Biden administration, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen introduced a bill to stem Washington's inadvertent pipeline to the RSF.

That bill remains in limbo. 

“As we witness horrific scenes in El-Fasher, the UAE continues arming the RSF, which the US has determined is committing genocide. Enough. We must pass my bill to block arms sales to the UAE until it stops fuelling the RSF’s war crimes in Sudan,” Van Hollen said last week. 

Since the civil war began in April 2023, the US - under two different administrations - has authorised weapons sales to the UAE worth some $2.6bn. 

The UAE hosts the Al Dhafra Air Base and has cultivated particularly close ties with the Trump family. 

Though Abu Dhabi denies it, extensive reporting from MEE using satellite imagery, flight and ship tracking data, video evidence, weapons serial numbers and multiple sources from across the region indicates that the UAE has supplied weapons to the RSF throughout the war.

Terrorist designations and foreign mercenaries

Idris, citing a bipartisan effort led by Idaho Republican Senator Jim Risch, called on the Trump administration to designate the RSF as a terrorist organisation to spur sanctions, and by extension, a call to action to protect its victims.

"Boko Haram was designated. Al-Qaeda was designated. IS was designated... why not the Janjaweed? What the Janjaweed are doing is far even worse than what some of those organisations have done," he said. 

A press release on the bill notes Sudan's location on the Red Sea as critical for "global trade and energy flows". US lawmakers backing the move said the country's history as a "haven for terrorists" makes it especially important that "all warring parties" work with the Trump administration to end the bloodshed.

"The RSF’s long-predicted ethnically targeted assault on the civilian population of El-Fasher makes clear that the United States must consider the designation of the RSF as a potential Foreign Terrorist Organization or Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization, while establishing clear authorizations and mechanisms for the continued delivery of humanitarian aid," lawmakers wrote in the release.

FTOs are designated by the US secretary of state and prevent any US citizens or residents from providing the group with "material support". SDGTs are designated by the secretary of the treasury, with the aim of cutting off the group's finances. 

'According to our investigation, there are 17 countries involved in this conflict'

- Mohamed Abdalla Idris, Sudan's ambassador to US

But while going after the RSF, the lawmakers, all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also said the Sudanese Armed Forces have equally "committed atrocities against civilians and pursued a zero-sum war at any cost". 

Asked at the press conference whether Khartoum is open to third parties entering the country to examine allegations of war crimes from both sides, Idris said Sudan "accepts independent bodies to come and investigate".

"We are open. If there are any confirmed and concrete allegations, put it on the table," he said. 

Reporters were shown videos that the Sudanese embassy said were uploaded to social media by members of the RSF, showing Colombian mercenaries speaking Spanish to one another, with bodies scattered around them in the besieged El-Fasher. The city, located in western Darfur, was seized by the RSF last month.

Sudan's government said it had taken the evidence it collected about such involvement to the United Nations Security Council, and pointed the finger at the UAE for hiring foreign fighters. 

The UN, however, previously said mercenaries were being brought in by both sides in Sudan. 

"According to our investigation, there are 17 countries involved in this conflict," the Sudanese ambassador to Washington said, implying that they were all aiding the RSF.

Sudan has taken those concerns to the Arab League and the African Union (AU), he added. 

But despite Sudan being a founding member of the AU in 1963, its membership was suspended one year ago, owing to the escalation of the civil war.

"Instead of helping the Sudanese and talking to the Sudanese government... they just freeze our membership," the ambassador said. "That denies us giving first-hand information". 

More than 150,000 people are believed to have been killed in the two and a half years since a power-sharing coalition broke down in Sudan. Another 12 million people have been displaced.