BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:00 A.M.) – The spokesman for the Sovereignty Council in Sudan, Muhammad al-Faki Suleiman, considered the Fashaqa region to be Sudanese, calling on Ethiopia to withdraw from two points on the border between the two countries.
Suleiman said: “We do not carry out this war on behalf of anyone, and these are pure lies … We have not made a decision to go to war, but we have the right to open up to the last border point inside the territory of Sudan.”
He stressed, “We can go to war, but the priority is to a political solution and the decision to open up to the east was made with the approval of the Security and Defense Council, in its entirety.”
Suleiman refuted reports that Sudan is being driven by a third party for the military movement, and he said: “We do not need anyone to remind us of our sovereignty, and we are with regaining all our lands from the south and north, and this is one of the basic demands of the revolution.”
He pointed out that “the Sudanese Security and Defense Council is the one that recommends declaring war, and there is no declaration of war on Ethiopia.”
Suleiman explained that “the decision is political and not military, as it is promoted in the media.”
He confirmed that there are 3 committees to deal with developments in the East, “a political committee headed by me, a diplomatic committee led by Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din, and a committee for returnees headed by Finance Minister Heba Muhammad Ali, and that all of these committees are of a civil character.”
