Sudan's civilians and military agree on joint council

Taking the first step towards breaking the prevailing deadlock, Sudan's ruling Military Transitional Council (MTC) and the Declaration of Freedom and Changes Forces agreed in principle to create a joint council to run the country until the next elections.

"Talks will continue and we are optimistic on reaching a final result that we can announce to the Sudanese people as soon as possible," Shams Eldin Kabashi, the spokesperson for the military council, told Al Jazeera, He added that Saturday's "talks started with high spirits and great transparency".

However, Saturday's decision is only the first step as both the sides are yet to sort out disagreements.

 

"There is still a lot of discord and disagreement between the two sides. The military wants 10 members on this council, three of them civilians, seven of them military. The opposition wants the council to be made up of 15 members, eight of them civilians and seven people from the military," Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall said.

Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir was ousted and arrested in a military coup last month. This came as the African country faced months of continuous protests against the ousted leader's decades-long rule which was marred by rampant corruption. The protests snowballed after initially being triggered by the rising prices of daily commodities like bread.

After overthrowing Bashir, the military council promised to hold elections after overseeing a two-year transitional period - a move which has been slammed by protesters who are holding sit-ins against the military rule.

The demonstrators have also rejected the African Union's proposal to give the MTC a three-month period to hand over power to a civil administration.

"Sudanese don't need the recommendation of African Union," Sadiq al-Mahdi, the head of the National Umma Party, said.

"Over the past three weeks, more and more people have been arriving from different parts of the country to join the sit-in. They say they want civilians, and not the military, to be the ones who have the ultimate say on the shape of Sudan's future," he stated.