A meeting — or simply the same room?

There is a rather important distinction being lost in the reporting around Massad Boulos and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

The US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs wrote that he attended a luncheon hosted by President Sisi “alongside” General Burhan.

That is not the same thing as saying he held a meeting with Burhan.

Yet the encounter is now being reported as a meeting between the US envoy and Sudan’s army chief.

According to Reuters, a senior Sudanese government official described it rather differently: a “casual encounter”, with no talks between the two.

Why does the distinction matter?

Because in Sudan diplomacy, optics are policy.

After Washington withheld Burhan’s UN visa amid pressure over the proposed 90-day humanitarian ceasefire, an apparently formal US-Burhan meeting would carry considerable political weight.

If there was no bilateral meeting, no substantive conversation and no new engagement, then we should be careful not to manufacture one simply because two men attended the same luncheon.

Sudan needs diplomacy. But it also needs accurate diplomacy.