Sudan ruling military ready for talks with opposition

KHARTOUM

Sudan's ruling military council said on Wednesday it is ready to engage in talks with the opposition amid tension since the ouster of autocrat President Omar al-Bashir.

"We welcome the negotiations with the Freedom and Change coalition but without exclusion of any Sudanese in the [comprehensive] national solution," Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Burhan, head of the Transition Military Council (TMC), said during a meeting with a delegation of the National Council for Medical and Health Professions in Khartoum.

Burhan reiterated the TMC's rejection of any foreign interference in Sudan's domestic affairs.

He said the TMC has no precondition for sitting to negotiations with any side.

"However, the TMC will not allow the country to slide into sedition," Burhan said.

Sudan has remained in turmoil since April 11, when the military establishment deposed al-Bashir after months of popular protests against his 30-year rule.

The Transitional Military Council (TMC) is now overseeing a two-year “transitional period” during which it has pledged to hold free presidential elections.

The TMC said Tuesday it will draw up a transitional technocrat government.

Protests across the nation, however, have continued to demand that the military council hand over power -- at the earliest possible date -- to a civilian authority.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat