Khartoum / Cairo — A delegation of 70 leaders of the Forces for Freedom and Change-Democratic Block (FFC-DB), will depart for Cairo to participate in the inter-Sudanese dialogue workshop brokered by Egypt for the Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue, prominent FFC-DB member has confirmed.

Mustafa Tambour, a former member of the holdout Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW), told Radio Dabanga that "delegates from a large number of political groups - with the exception of the FFC-Central Council - will participate in the Cairo workshop that will be launched on February 1".

The FFC-CC is leading the current political process in cooperation with the other signatories of the Framework Agreement, which is to end with a Final Agreement with the junta, after which the military will withdraw from politics to make way for a civilian government. The coalition one month ago refused to "flood the political process" with parties "that are not interested in democracy", such as the FFC-DB.

He explained that the importance of the workshop lies in "bringing together different political forces, and because Egypt has the best chance of mediating between the Sudanese parties and managing a comprehensive Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue, given its strategic relations with Sudan".

Regarding the AU-IGAD-UNITAMS Trilateral Mechanism that is brokering the political process, Tambour called "its approach to dealing with the political crisis incorrect, its identification of the parties inaccurate, which has contributed to increasing tension".

On January 19, the Mechanism agreed with the FFC-CC that it would take over the organisation of the conferences on the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) and governance in eastern Sudan from the Framework Agreement signatories.

Tambour played down the importance of the conference on the JPA, that will start in Khartoum today. "It does not have any value because the participating parties have nothing to do with the JPA and are not interested in discussing it."

He said that the rebel members of the FFC-DB will definitely take part in the workshop on the JPA in Juba in mid-February. The South Sudanese team that mediated the negotiations that lead to the signing of the JPA in October 2020 has invited the signatories to a workshop "to develop a clear road map for the implementation of the JPA protocols".