Sudan, Khartoum
April 2, 2022—The head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has threatened to expel the United Nations’ special representative to Sudan Volker Perthes over alleged “meddling “in the country’s affairs.
The comments come days after the U.N. representative to Sudan Volker Perthes gave an update to the Security Council on efforts in Sudan where he reflected on the country’s economic turmoil, violence against protesters and priorities for a transition to elections.
Speaking at a military graduation ceremony on Friday Gen. Al-Burhan, said UN Chief Perthes is lying a lot about the situation in the country in what the top military leader views as a direct interference in the Sudanese domestic affairs.
“We heard his slander the other day, lying, blatantly lying,” Gen. Al-Burhan said in a speech at military graduation on Friday.
“If you overstep your mandate, we will put you out of Sudan.”, he cautioned.
Perthes’ mission has involved holding a series of consultations, along with the African Union, aiming at coming to a political solution in the wake of a military coup in October which sealed the fate of power-sharing arrangement with civilian parties.
“We say to him you have a specific mandate, and we said we are open for you to sit in talks, but for you to lie and to try to manage the Sudanese people, we will kick you out,” Al- Burhan elaborated.
On 25th October last year, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ousted the civilian-military shared transition, suspended the constitution and locked up most of the civilian leaders including the country’s Prime Minister Dr. Abdallah Hamdok in what he justified as an action to rescue the country from going into a civil war. As result mass protests have become order of the day in the country since the coup.
Perthes said UNITAMS along with the AU and regional bloc IGAD have concurred on joint efforts to facilitate Sudanese-led peace talks.
