Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohi al-Din Salem said the government was prepared to take part in sincere initiatives to end the country's war, while insisting that any effort conform to roadmaps previously presented by Sudanese leaders to the United Nations.
Salem made the remarks during a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva focused on the situation in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state. He described the conflict as a proxy war and said the government's openness to international efforts was conditional on its own framework for ending the fighting.
The foreign minister cited two documents: a roadmap submitted to the UN by Sovereign Council chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on March 10, 2025, and an initiative Prime Minister Kamil Idris presented to the UN Security Council on September 22, 2025. According to Salem's account, the government plan calls for dismantling the Rapid Support Forces, disarming its fighters, implementing security arrangements, declaring a ceasefire and beginning a nationally led political process with international support.
That sequence highlights the limits of Khartoum's offer. The statement supported mediation in principle but attached conditions that go directly to the status and future of the RSF, the army's opponent since the war began in April 2023. Fighting broke out amid disagreement over plans to integrate the paramilitary force into Sudan's military.
Salem renewed the government's demand that the RSF be designated a terrorist organisation. He also urged countries supporting it to stop sending advanced weapons and drones that he said were being used against civilian locations. The supplied report did not include an RSF response or identify the governments Sudan accuses of providing those arms.
The remarks came amid growing concern around El Obeid. The city had faced about two weeks of RSF drone attacks on its main power station, fuel facilities and other civilian sites, with dozens reported killed or injured. The UN, international organisations and several governments, including the United States, had warned of possible atrocities amid reports of an RSF buildup around the city.
A UN warning issued on May 12 said escalating drone attacks across Kordofan killed at least 880 civilians between January and April 2026. North, West and South Kordofan had experienced intense army-RSF fighting since October 25.
Sudan's war has killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 13 million people, creating one of the world's gravest humanitarian crises. Salem's statement offered a public opening to renewed diplomacy, but the conditions he set showed that substantial disagreement over security arrangements, the RSF and control of a future political process remained.
