6 minWorld
Sudan's Burhan Denied US Visa as Ceasefire Talks Falter
Sudan's military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was denied a US visa to attend the UN General Assembly after Washington accused both warring parties of failing to commit to a humanitarian truce. The dispute highlights a widening rift over Sudan's civil war and competing foreign interests in the region.
Sudan's military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was denied a US visa to attend the United Nations General Assembly, a move that has exposed a deepening rift between Washington and Khartoum over a proposed 90-day humanitarian ceasefire. The visa was withheld amid a dispute over the truce, and Burhan responded defiantly from the Sudanese capital, saying his government would not bow to external pressure.
«We will keep our heads high. We will not accept bargaining, sell ourselves cheaply to anyone or bow to anyone,» Burhan said, according to Anadolu Agency. «We do not need a visa to any country or anyone's permission.»
The State Department has accused both Burhan's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of failing to make serious commitments to an immediate truce. «Neither the Sudanese Armed Forces, the Rapid Support Forces, nor their respective leaders, represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan,» State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said on Sept. 22, adding that the conduct of both leaders renders them «ineligible to govern the country.»
Washington has repeatedly asked both sides to accept a humanitarian truce «without preconditions» and commit to an inclusive political dialogue leading to civilian government, according to the State Department. Instead, both sides have intensified combat operations and drone strikes that have killed civilians.
But a senior advisor to Burhan disputed Washington's account. Dr. Amjad Farid Al-Tayyib, foreign affairs advisor to Sudan's Transitional Sovereignty Council, said Sudan never rejected the American ceasefire proposal and had instead submitted technical comments on it.
«We never rejected this proposal,» Farid said in an interview on the sidelines of UNGA. «The Sudanese government wants war with no one.» Farid said a negotiating team had intended to accompany Burhan and accused Washington of undermining the diplomatic process it was seeking to advance by preventing the delegation from traveling.
The State Department declined to comment on Burhan's specific visa case, citing its policy of not discussing individual visa decisions. A spokesperson said Washington is instead focused on a broader diplomatic framework with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE through the Quad, linking a humanitarian truce and sustained aid access to a permanent ceasefire, civilian transition and reconstruction.
«We are working with our partners to encourage the parties to agree to the humanitarian truce and guarantee humanitarian access, and to also ensure external military or financial support to the warring parties is cut off,» the spokesperson said. The Quad supports the Quintet-led civilian political track and rejects parallel diplomatic processes that could fragment negotiations, the spokesperson added.
The United Nations also challenged Washington over the visa decision. «We immediately raised with the U.S. authorities the issue regarding the denial of visa to the President of the Transitional Sovereign Council of the Sudan, who was scheduled to address the General Assembly this week,» U.N. Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.
Cameron Hudson, a former director for African affairs on the National Security Council, said his understanding was that Washington had asked the Sudanese to send a delegation both to the U.N. and to Washington for talks on a ceasefire. He said the Sudanese were preparing to do so before Washington made Burhan's visa contingent on signing the ceasefire agreement before traveling.
«It doesn't fully make sense why the United States took this decision at the last minute,» Hudson said.
Farid said the central dispute is whether the RSF would be required to withdraw from civilian areas it controls. He argued that freezing current lines of control risks turning a temporary ceasefire into a de facto partition of Sudan.
The dispute comes against the backdrop of a brutal civil war that erupted in April 2023 following a power struggle between Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti. Both sides have been accused of serious violations, but Hudson said treating their records as interchangeable obscures an important distinction.
«The RSF is committing war crimes on a scale and with an intention that the army does not,» Hudson said. He acknowledged that SAF has struck civilian targets and committed war crimes, including through drone attacks, but said the RSF's record goes significantly further, citing mass rape, mass killing, torture and sexual enslavement. He argued that Western descriptions of «both sides» can create the impression that the two forces are committing the same crimes «on the same scale or with the same intention.»
U.N. investigators have also drawn distinctions while documenting abuses by both forces. A U.N. fact-finding mission reported in September 2025 that both SAF and RSF have committed widespread violations, but noted differences in the scale and nature of their crimes.
The war has created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, with more than 12 million people forcibly displaced, according to U.N. figures. The conflict has also drawn in foreign powers competing for strategic influence stretching to the Red Sea, complicating efforts to end the fighting.
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