A week of indirect talks involving Sudan’s warring parties wraps up in Geneva

BERLIN (AP) — A U.N. envoy says a week of indirect talks involving Sudan’s warring parties has ended in Geneva. He described the discussions on Friday as an “encouraging initial step” in a complex process. Representatives of the Sudanese army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces accepted invitations to meet separately with the U.N. secretary-general’s personal envoy, Ramtane Lamamra, who started the talks on July 11. He said in a statement that his team held a total of about 20 sessions with the parties’ delegations. Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions including Darfur.