UAE says it does not recognize decision by Sudan’s defence council to sever ties

CAIRO (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry said on Wednesday it did not recognise a decision by Sudan’s army-affiliated defence council to sever ties with the Gulf country.

The Sudanese defence council said on Sunday it would cut ties with the UAE over army accusations that Abu Dhabi supplied rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries with advanced and strategic weapons.

The council said the weapons had enabled the RSF to carry out damaging strikes, including with drones, on facilities in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan since Sunday, a major escalation in the country’s two-year-old civil war.

(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Yomna Ehab; editing by Mark Heinrich)