The UN Security Council unanimously voted on Thursday to extend an arms embargo on Sudan’s Darfur region until December 11, buying time for negotiations over a US proposal to widen the restrictions to the entire country.
The short extension highlighted disagreements over how to stop weapons from reaching those fighting in Sudan’s civil war, now in its fourth year.
Washington has pushed for a nationwide embargo, while China, Russia and other council members want to keep the sanctions confined to Darfur.
Although the embargo has failed to stop weapons reaching Darfur, it allows UN experts to investigate arms shipments and identify those responsible for breaches, paving the way for any further sanctions.
Massad Boulos, US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, proposed expanding the embargo in August. Working with Mike Waltz, Washington’s ambassador to the UN, he sought to increase pressure on the warring Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
“The United States has presented a resolution to the Security Council that would expand the arms embargo nationwide, making clear that sanctions and member state implementation of those rules apply to all the networks keeping this war alive on both sides, with no carve-outs,” Mr Boulos and Mr Waltz wrote in an opinion piece for Foreign Policy in September.
The two said that nationwide restrictions would take aim at arms traffickers, financiers, mercenary recruiters and drone suppliers.
But the proposal met resistance from China and Russia, which hold veto power, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Somalia and Pakistan.
Tension between Washington and Khartoum increased after the US reportedly withheld a visa for Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, before his scheduled UN General Assembly address last month.
Reuters reported that the decision appeared to be linked to his resistance to a US-backed ceasefire plan.
Sudan has claimed it did not reject the US ceasefire proposal but instead submitted comments on it.
US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said last month that neither the SAF nor the RSF represented a legitimate constitutional government for Sudan.
