The Sudanese government on Saturday accepted Turkey’s proposal to mediate the country’s border disputes with Ethiopia, reported The Daily Sabah.
Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have been running high due to a conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the Blue Nile River.
Earlier this month, the Sudanese government summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to Khartoum after 29 bodies of Ethiopian citizens from the Tigray ethnic group were found on the banks of a river flowing from Ethiopia.
“During the visit of Sudan’s head of Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to Turkey last month, he accepted an initiative from the Turkish leadership to solve the border disputes with Ethiopia,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi said during a news conference in Khartoum.
Mahdi also said that Sudan is keen to improve its ties with Turkey in different areas, including the political and economic fronts.
The Sudanese Sovereign Council head Al-Burhan visited Turkey in August and signed several economic agreements with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan had said at that time that Turkey would like to mediate between Ethiopia and Sudan to resolve a border dispute and help find a peaceful resolution for the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left millions hungry.
Northern Ethiopia plunged into a war-like situation since last November when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the military to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s then ruling party.
Thousands have been killed in the nine-month war in Tigray that has been marked by widespread allegations of gang rapes, manmade local famines, and mass expulsions of Tigrayans by Ethiopian and allied forces.
Foreign Minister Mahdi also said that Sudan asked the U.N. Security Council to drop international sanctions regarding the situation in the western Darfur region. She informed that Sudan has accepted to open offices for the U.N. Human Rights Council as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC).
