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Burhan says he wants no visa while his own adviser says Sudan never refused the truce

Washington withheld an entry visa from Sudan’s Sovereign Council chairman ahead of the General Assembly. Within 48 hours, two irreconcilable accounts of Khartoum’s position on a US ceasefire proposal came out of the same government.

Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had been scheduled to address the UN General Assembly on Thursday 24 September. He did not travel. Speaking at Khartoum Stadium on Saturday 26 September before an audience of sports figures and content creators, he addressed the refusal for the first time: “We will not backtrack on what we said: we do not want a visa to any country, nor do we want their permission, nor do we want anything.” He added, “We will stay here with you until we die here in this country,” and set out a war aim without qualification: “Our goal is to eliminate this militia, no matter the cost… Our goal is to cleanse Sudan all the way to Darfur. We will not let them go; we will reach them wherever they entered, place by place.” It is the second consecutive year Burhan has not appeared in New York; Washington sanctioned him in January 2025, and Prime Minister Kamil Idriss led the delegation last year.

Reuters reported, via a Sudanese diplomatic source and a Western analyst described as close to American and Sudanese officials, that the visa was conditioned on Burhan signing a 90-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by Massad Boulos, the US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs. That is two anonymous sources, one of them not a participant. The State Department declined to comment, citing its policy on individual visa decisions, and Washington has not publicly confirmed any condition. Sudan’s permanent representative to the UN, Al-Harith Idriss, wrote to Secretary-General António Guterres asking for engagement with US authorities “at the highest appropriate level,” arguing Sudan had met all entry requirements and that barring a head of state breaches the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement. UN officials said they raised the matter with Washington; Guterres expressed serious concern at the non-issuance.

Then the divergence. Dr. Amjad Farid Al-Tayyib, foreign affairs adviser to Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, told Fox News Digital in an interview datelined United Nations and published within the last 24 hours: “We never rejected this proposal.” He said Sudan had submitted technical comments on the American paper rather than turning it down, that a negotiating team had intended to travel with Burhan, and that Washington had undermined the very process it was trying to advance by blocking the delegation. “The Sudanese government wants war with no one,” Farid said. Set against the stadium speech — in which Burhan committed to eliminating the Rapid Support Forces and reaching Darfur “place by place” — the two statements describe different postures toward the same proposal, issued by the same government inside two days.

Assessment: One of these accounts is for domestic consumption and one governs the file; the desk does not yet know which. The tell will be procedural, not rhetorical: whether a Sudanese technical delegation actually travels, or whether a written response to the Boulos paper surfaces. Note also what is not established. The visa-for-ceasefire linkage rests entirely on two anonymous sources carried by Reuters, with State declining comment — it is a reported condition, not a confirmed one. An on-the-record US confirmation or denial would change the story’s shape in either direction, and its absence is doing work for both capitals.

Khartoum moves to criminalise undocumented gold as 56 tonnes a year leave official channels

Sudan’s minerals minister announced draft legislation making possession of gold without papers a criminal offence. State figures put national output at about 70 tonnes last year against 14 tonnes in recorded exports.

On Monday 28 September, Minister of Minerals Nour al-Daim Taha announced plans for legislation criminalising possession of gold without official documentation, alongside digital tracking across mine sites. Under the framework described, holders of gold with expired permits or without certified transit paperwork would face prosecution; officials cast it as part of a wider overhaul to tighten control of circulation and close illicit trading hubs. No text has been published and no parliamentary timetable given — this is an announced intention, not a law. It follows a decision last month by Sudan’s Security and Defence Council to create specialised courts for gold and weapons smuggling, human trafficking and narcotics, and to prohibit regular armed forces and allied paramilitary groups from being present inside mining concession zones. That last provision is an admission about who has been sitting on the mines, and its enforceability is the whole question.

The arithmetic explains the urgency. The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company puts national production last year at roughly 70 tonnes; the Central Bank of Sudan recorded 14 tonnes in official exports over the same period, according to Sudan Tribune. The 56-tonne gap is our subtraction, not a published figure, and both inputs come from state bodies reported by a single outlet in a country whose government does not control the Darfur goldfields or parts of Kordofan — so treat 56 tonnes as a floor rather than a measurement. A Sudan Tribune investigation published 6 August mapped the main artery as Darfur–Bahr el Ghazal–Juba, with river transit through White Nile–Upper Nile and eastward channels into Ethiopia and Eritrea; gold arrives in Juba as raw ingots bought in cash dollars and is re-exported to Dubai with an altered legal identity. That account rests on one trader, anonymous and identified only as “F.A.”

Assessment: Two readings of the same announcement, and the evidence to separate them does not exist yet. Either this is a genuine fiscal consolidation by a government that needs customs revenue more than it needs the informal trade, or it is a signal to Brussels ahead of further listings — the EU Council strengthened its Sudan regime on 13 July specifically to target gold, calling it “a key source of revenue sustaining the conflict.” The tests are narrow and observable: publication of draft text, a first prosecution, and any case brought against an armed formation inside a concession zone rather than against a courier.

Drones hit a Gezira fuel depot as Riyadh files an August aid strike with the Security Council

The Umm Alila depot near Wad Madani burned on Sunday morning; no party has claimed the attack. Saudi Arabia’s UN complaint over an El Obeid aid convoy rests on an attribution supplied by Khartoum.

In the early hours of Sunday 27 September, drones struck the Umm Alila fuel depot near Abu Haraz, about 20 km northeast of Wad Madani in Al Jazirah state. Residents reported several explosions shortly after dawn prayers. Civil Defence said it contained the fire and prevented it spreading beyond the petrol and diesel tanks. The facility distributes fuel across Sudan’s principal agricultural state and was ransacked during the RSF’s takeover of Wad Madani in December 2023. Sudan Tribune attributed the strike to the RSF on the basis of security sources and witnesses; Dabanga stated it in its own voice. The RSF could not be reached by either outlet and has not claimed it. Separately on Thursday 24 September, the army said it downed a Chinese-made FH-95 drone near El Kokiti in North Kordofan, its second that week, while the RSF said it downed a Turkish-made Bayraktar over Blue Nile. Neither side published wreckage.

Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador Abdulaziz Al-Wasil has now written to the Security Council and the Secretary-General over a drone strike around midnight on 17 August that hit a truck carrying King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre supplies near the entrance to El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan. Al-Wasil said Saudi authorities received official confirmation of RSF responsibility from Sudan’s foreign ministry — one belligerent attributing an act to the other, relayed by a third state. An RSF spokesperson could not be reached. The letter was seen by Sudan Tribune and by no other outlet in this window. Sudan Tribune’s own framing of the North Kordofan front is that the army has largely thwarted ground incursions after retaking positions across the state, while drone strikes on civilian and military infrastructure in El Obeid continue.

Assessment: Two things are worth separating. The first is a pattern: the RSF is not claiming strikes on fuel infrastructure while US truce terms are live, which is itself information about what it wants attributed to it and when. The second is timing. Riyadh sat on the 17 August incident for six weeks and filed in the week its Quad partner Abu Dhabi faces UN Panel of Experts scrutiny over RSF supply. That is positioning as much as humanitarianism. And if El Obeid’s ground line is holding while drone attrition on fuel, shelters and convoys intensifies, the siege has changed character rather than escalated — which makes the El Fasher template the wrong one.