Geneva, Switzerland
Pekka Haavisto, Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Sudan
Moderator: Welcome ladies and gentlemen, here and online, for this closing press conference following the sixth consultative meeting on enhancing coordination of peace initiatives and efforts in Sudan today, Wednesday, 21 October, here at the UN in Geneva. We will now hear from our speakers, Pekka Haavisto, the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for Sudan and Tim Enderlin, Ambassador and the Head of the peace and human rights division in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Confederation that, as you know, was co-hosting the meeting.
So, we will start by giving the floor to our speakers for introductory remarks and then I'll take questions.
Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan: Thank you.
Good to be here in Geneva.
This was the sixth time that this kind of consultative meeting on Sudan was organized and very happy that Ambassador Tim Enderlin and the teams from Switzerland were co-hosting and co-organizers with the United Nations.
This consultative meeting, we had all together 26 countries and international institutions, 21 countries, five international institutions participating. And we have just concluded actually today's meetings.
I have to tell you that we started already yesterday with some interventions and introductions of UN organizations and international Red Cross, ICRC, telling about the situation in Sudan and telling about their work and important work on the humanitarian front, on the human rights sector and also on the environmental sector in Sudan. And many participants commented that this was the first time that they, for example, have a good briefing on the environmental damage that the war has caused in Sudan.
The discussion was today concentrating on three key chapters, I would say, the security solution, covering the issues like humanitarian truce and possible ceasefire and what will follow after the ceasefire, also the political track of the issues, which are taken care of by the so-called Quintet - five international organizations, African Union, IGAD [Integovernmental Authority on Development], League of Arab States, European Union and United Nations. And then, in addition, we have added this time to the program the regional perspective, so that countries of the region, countries like Chad, Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea told their perspective of the current situation and also the burden that they have been carrying from the civil war in Sudan in the form of refugees and so on.
We also had quite a lot of bilateral meetings and side meetings during this consultative meeting here in Geneva, maybe the most important was the fact that the Quad, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, [United Arab] Emirates and Egypt, together with [inaudible] that I already earlier mentioned, had a common meeting yesterday evening - we spent actually quite late in the evening- first time really having this kind of informal chat among the principals of the Quintet and Quad, and we continued today that kind of meeting and it was the first time I think we interacted so intensively. We had one meeting during the UNGA, the UN high level week in New York this autumn, and now we could, here in Geneva, continue our discussions.
This is very important for the reason that when we speak about peace in Sudan, we definitely need the security solutions, but we also need the political solutions. All parties in Sudan conflict are asking that if we agree on a humanitarian truce or if we agree on a ceasefire, how the day after will look like. And the day after is planned by this political work and political solution prepared by the Quintet. And that's very important that the security track and the political track are meeting here.
I want to thank you, of course, the Swiss government for your excellent cooperation during the meeting and preparations and you have an excellent team working closely with our UN team. So I'm ready then to answer later questions.
Thank you.
Moderator: Thank you very much to both our speakers. I'll open the floor to question now and I see Beyza. Beyza is our correspondent of Anadolu and the Turkish news agency.
Question: Thank you, Alessandra. Beyza Damas from Anadolu. I would like to start with asking what about any concrete outcomes of this meeting compared to the previous meetings we had as this was the sixth one. And do you see this after the meeting, do you see this as a step forward going in the process? Or are we having similar calls for de-escalation, humanitarian aid, but the action still needs further meetings. Thank you.
Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan: Maybe to start the answer by mentioning that while we are witnessing unfortunately a civil war in Sudan that has been lasting more than three years, we also are witnessing more diplomatic efforts than earlier around Sudan, and more engagement with different fighters and political actors.
As the Quintet, with the five different international organizations, we had a quite successful visit in the beginning of September in Khartoum. We also had, some weeks ago, so-called antiwar camp, political group, in Addis Ababa as our guest.
We had just this weekend actually led by also some Quintet members, the meeting with youth and women in Nairobi and so forth.
So, a lot is happening on the political track and forming the possible transitional phase for Sudan. Unfortunately, we still have in Sudan parties who believe in a military victory of this war.
We, as the international community, are saying that there is no military solution to the conflict in Sudan. The solution has to be found from diplomatic talks and discussions and so forth. And this is, of course, our message to all parties in Sudan.
One small step that the United Nations have been taking is trying to introduce so-called confidence-building measures, some steps that both parties can agree, and we have started with two issues.
One is the possible exchange of the prisoners of the war or detainees, both civilians and soldiers, who are detained during this conflict and another issue is to facilitate the 12th grade exam for all the students in Sudan, independent of which region they are living in and so forth. We think that there are issues that should unite actually the both parties of the conflict.
But these are, of course, baby steps compared with the terrible destruction that is happening in the country currently
Moderator: Taha Hassan, Associated Press television news.
Question: Thank you for this information provided.
I ask you as Sudanese citizen, not a journalist, because we are suffering a lot. And the people until now, they are suffering of this war. And we need to end this war. Please could you give us how can end stop this war in Sudan. Thank you very much.
Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan: If I start and Tim can add. We have been meeting a lot of civilians both inside Sudan and outside of the country, some who are refugees at the moment. And we have been meeting many youth groups and women's groups. My latest meeting with women were in Kigali, where so called Entebbe group is meeting,
actually women from both sides of the conflict. And it's very impressive how the civilians are working in the most difficult conditions, first to help the humanitarian situation in their country and in their region, but also advocating the peaceful solution to the conflict. And, of course, this voice of Sudanese civilians is something that we are picking with us when we are talking to military leaders of the country. One issue that I have been raising several times is the fact that this is not only war between two generals, General Hemedti and General Burhan, but this is a war between the coalitions. In these coalitions, there are many actors and these actors have many interests.
When talking about peace in Sudan, it's not enough that you address only the highest military leadership, but you have to address also members of these coalitions and try to convince them to come to the peace table and find solutions for the peace. One issue is, of course, the fact of the war economy that has been developing throughout these war years. For example, gold and natural resources are used to finance this conflict. And unfortunately, all kinds of illicit trafficking is increasing and there are people who benefit economically from this war. So all these aspects have to be taken into account when planning a peace negotiation.