Sudan’s war is becoming harder to contain — diplomatically as well as militarily

Something is changing in the regional conversation around Sudan.

Turkey is deepening its relationship with Khartoum, including cooperation in defence industries. Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia have just met in El Alamein to strengthen regional coordination. Saudi Arabia continues high-level engagement with Sudan.

None of this, on its own, ends the war.

But it does point to something that international diplomacy has been slow to recognise:

Sudan is not simply a domestic conflict requiring a ceasefire between two armed forces. It is a regional security crisis with external enablers, interests and consequences.

The question therefore is not only whether the parties to the war can be brought to the negotiating table.

It is whether those with influence over the war — inside and outside Sudan — can be brought into a framework that changes the incentives sustaining it.

That is the harder diplomatic task.

And it is one the international community can no longer afford to avoid.