Sudan military rulers brief US envoy

CONFLICT

Sudan's new military rulers briefed Washington's top envoy to Khartoum on Sunday about security after the army's ouster of veteran leader Omar al-Bashir, state media reported.

Steven Koutsis met with the military council's deputy Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, widely known as Himeidti, at the presidential palace in Khartoum.

The Sudanese deputy briefed Koutsis on the current situation in the country and the reason for forming the military council, the official SUNA news agency reported as state television broadcast footage of their meeting.

"Himeidti told him about the measures taken by the military council to preserve the security and stability of the country," SUNA reported.

Sudan's military council headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took power after the army ousted Bashir on Thursday.

Himeidti heads Sudan's controversial counter-insurgency unit -- the Rapid Support Force (RSF) -- which rights groups have accused of abuses in the war-torn Darfur region.

About 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since a brutal conflict erupted there in 2003, when ethnic rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government of Bashir.

The United States, which has blacklisted Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, has insisted that Khartoum needs to improve its human rights record if it wants to be removed from the list.

Washington imposed sanctions on Sudan in 1997 for its alleged links to Islamists which were lifted in October 2017, but the much awaited economic recovery has failed to