NEW YORK (Al-Jazeera) - The United Nations Security Council issued its first statement since the military dissolved the country’s power-sharing transitional government, expressing “serious concern” but falling short of issuing a stronger condemnation of the coup.
In a press statement approved by all 15 council members on Thursday, the UN’s most powerful body expressed “solidarity” with the Sudanese people and “called upon all parties to exercise the utmost restraint, refrain from the use of violence and emphasized the importance of full respect for human rights, including the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.
It also demanded the immediate release of all those detained and affirmed its readiness “to support efforts to realize Sudan’s democratic transition” and the peoples’ aspirations “for an inclusive, peaceful, stable, democratic and prosperous future”.
The British-drafted text was the product of days of laborious talks among council members that had started with an urgent session on Tuesday. It went through several revisions, diplomats said, mainly to address objections from Russia, which did not want to “condemn” the military takeover as originally proposed.
At the insistence of China, the text notes explicitly that deposed Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok had returned home on Tuesday evening after having been arrested. The UN has maintained he is being denied freedom of movement.
The military took power in the East African country on Monday after a period of intense political crisis, including street demonstrations demanding that the military end its involvement in the government.
General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, who previously headed a transitional government together with Hamdok, announced on Monday that the civilian government had been dissolved and declared a state of emergency.