A year after the US and its Arab partners announced a plan to secure a ceasefire in Sudan, Washington is increasing pressure on the country's warring generals and saying neither can have a role in governing the country after the war.
Massad Boulos, the US envoy for Arab and African affairs, said on Tuesday that there is “no future” for Sudan's two rival military leaders, both of whom face US sanctions and allegations of grave abuses.
Washington still supports the ceasefire roadmap agreed to last year by the so-called Quad, made up of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the US. But Mr Boulos acknowledged the effort has yet to yield results.
Washington is now taking a firmer line against the two main figures in the war, Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Gen Mohamed Dagalo, who leads the Rapid Support Forces.
In recent weeks, Washington has increased pressure, including by pushing for a UN arms embargo for the whole of Sudan and imposing measures on the Sudanese government over its alleged use of chemical weapons.
Areig Elhag, a Sudanese analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the recent US measures against Khartoum mark a shift from Washington's earlier efforts.
The recent pressure has been "on Al Burhan, but before that the US was all the time trying to do the balance on this case", she said.
Any shift in focus towards the SAF does not, however, mean that Washington regards the RSF as a better player in the conflict. The Biden administration in January 2025 accused the RSF of genocide, an accusation kept by the Trump administration.
While the RSF has said it accepts a 90-day humanitarian truce, it has rejected aspects of the proposed withdrawal arrangements.
Ms Elhag said that the RSF was good at telling the international community what it wanted to hear while continuing to fight.
"I think they are acting more smart than the military because they give the international community what they want to hear," she said. "We are hearing this, but we see different things on the ground."
Gen Al Burhan, meanwhile, has vowed to continue fighting until the RSF is defeated.
“The issue here is what will happen next? … How are they going to deal with Al Burhan now? Because will that help the negotiation? Will that bring Al Burhan to sit and talk to the US and Hemedti [Gen Dagalo]? I am not sure if this will happen," Ms Elhag said.
Gen Al Burhan, 66, who has been the leader of Sudan since 2019, is due in New York next week for the UN General Assembly, giving US diplomats another opportunity to underscore Washington's position.
Still, Ms Elhag said any new pressure on the SAF leader may not be enough to lead him to the negotiating table.
“The main issue with Al Burhan is that he is not making decisions alone,” she said, referring to the armed groups, Islamists and other political forces that form parts of the military camp.
Chemical weapons
This month, the SAF faced new evidence over its alleged use of chemical weapons. Reports published by The New York Times and The Washington Post revealed the SAF had not only used chemical weapons in the devastating war but also built a secret stockpile that it has since sought to conceal.
A UN fact-finding report revealed this month that the SAF had used foreign-supplied drones in operations that harmed civilians.
On Friday, the UN Security Council gave members one month to discuss Washington's proposal to extend across the whole of Sudan an arms embargo that currently only applies to the Darfur region.
Washington pushed for the short-term extension to allow further negotiations to widen the embargo, rather than simply renewing the existing sanctions regime for another year.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, with an estimated 20 million people suffering from hunger. Yet Gen Al Burhan has vowed to continue fighting until the RSF is defeated, rejecting repeated attempts by the US and regional powers to broker a ceasefire.
A year of frustrated diplomacy has "not borne fruit yet," Mr Boulos noted in the remarks he made in Dubai on Tuesday. The question now is whether Washington will further increase pressure to bring Sudan's generals to the negotiating table.
