Deputy Chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council Malik Agar will lead the country's delegation to the coming Russia-Africa summit in place of the council's chairman and commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Agar said in an interview with Al Jazeera TV on Tuesday night.
In late June, Agar announced at a press conference during an official visit to Moscow that the chairman of the country's transitional council planned to personally attend the summit, which will be held in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on July 27-28.
"Today I received a letter from him [Al-Bruhan] asking me to represent him in Russia," Agar said in response to a question about the country's representation at the upcoming Russia-Africa summit, noting that the decision was made in light of the situation in the country.
He indicated, however, that the head of the sovereign council could personally fly to the summit if deemed necessary.
Asked whether the Sudanese government sought military assistance from Russia during Agar's recent trip to Moscow amid the ongoing armed conflict in his country, the senior official stressed that the purpose of his visit was to promote bilateral cooperation between the two countries in various fields.
Agar, who met during his trip with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, stressed that the Sudanese side has not asked Moscow for military assistance to the SAF, noting that weapons are not among the country's priorities at the current stage.
"We did not ask them [the Russian side] to do that," Agar told Al Jazeera, adding that weapons "can be bought and sold."
The North African country is witnessing an ongoing armed conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by the Chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
With its epicenter in the country's capital city of Khartoum, the conflict has claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and displaced more than 2.2 million in the country, with another 645,000 fleeing across borders.