Sudan’s SAF leadership continues resisting a U.S.-led plan to halt the country’s war, even as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) publicly accept a three-month humanitarian ceasefire designed to open aid corridors, according to diplomats and public statements reviewed this week.
Lt. Gen. Yasir al-Atta, assistant commander-in-chief, told a military graduation that the SAF will secure a “decisive” victory and predicted the RSF’s collapse, signalling Port Sudan’s preference for a battlefield outcome over negotiations.
Sudan’s new defence minister, Lt. Gen. Hassan Dawoud Kabron—appointed in June—has echoed a commitment to ongoing operations following security council talks on the ceasefire push, while thanking mediators’ efforts. Diplomats say the junta is packaging any truce around RSF withdrawals and regrouping—conditions they argue are hard to verify mid-conflict.
The RSF said last week it accepts the Quad plan and is ready to discuss a broader cessation of hostilities, a position corroborated by international outlets, though fighting has continued on multiple fronts.
Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim has publicly rejected bargaining with the RSF during visits to displacement sites, instead promising to retake El-Fasher and wider Darfur—rhetoric that cuts against the Quad’s “pause-first” sequencing.
The Quad—comprising the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the U.S.—has shifted from proposing to enforcing a pause, but any pre-truce pullback demands risk bogging down verification and monitors before aid can move, diplomats say.
The SAF has previously spurned outside ceasefire overtures, including a Ramadan pause, amid tensions with the UAE over alleged RSF support, which Abu Dhabi denies.
