US not against "direct engagement" with Sudan's military leaders

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (KUNA) -- Spokesperson of the US State Department Ned Price said Tuesday his country is closely monitoring the events in Sudan, but does not rule out the likelihood of having talks with the country's military leaders.
"We strongly condemn the recent reports of violence against peaceful protesters," he told reporters.
Price was commenting on violence that followed yesterday's military measures to dismiss the government, arrest senior politicians and dissolve the Sovereignty Council. The military leaders declared a state of emergency earlier today.
"If we feel that it would be constructive, that if it would be useful to help achieve the objective that we and our partners have set out - and that is a restoration of the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people, a restoration of the civilian-led transitional government - if we feel that engagement, direct engagement with a military leader would be useful, we wouldn't shy away from doing that," he made clear.
On his part, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden, renewed condemnation of the military takeover in Sudan, saying, "From our perspective, these actions are utterly unacceptable." "We've already made clear that we are pressing pause on significant aspects of our economic assistance to Sudan. "And we will look at the full range of economic tools available to us -- to make sure that we are trying to push the entire Sudanese political process back in a positive direction after this significant and alarming setback," he added.
US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman was there having intensive meetings "because we've been worried for some time about political stability in Sudan about the fragility of the democratic process there," Sullivan noted.
"The very purpose of his intensive diplomacy in Sudan was to address the fact that we were up against a circumstance in which there were a lot of forces pulling at this fragile effort to move towards a democratic constitutional order," he added. (end) asj.gb