US refuses to give Sudan's de facto leader visa for UN - EWN

KHARTOUM - The United States has refused to give Sudan's de facto leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, a visa to travel to New York to address the UN General Assembly, sources told AFP Tuesday.

Burhan, whose army has fought the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, was scheduled to address the UN on Wednesday. He has addressed the assembly before, twice since the war broke out.

One diplomatic source said the United States withholding the visa was a "clear violation of the UN's agreement with the US".

Another said the United States, which has repeatedly pushed for Sudan truce talks, had "conditioned the visa on Burhan accepting a three-month truce", which the government says would only allow the RSF to regroup and attack.

The US State Department, in a statement that did not mention the visa issue, said Tuesday that neither the army, the RSF, "nor their respective leaders, represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan".

With both sides rejecting Washington's call for a humanitarian truce, "we will seek to raise the cost of continued conflict on all belligerents and the networks which fuel the conflict," said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.