Carney visits UAE amid pressure to end support for Sudan’s civil war – National

Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday to seek further ties with the United Arab Emirates in areas such as artificial intelligence – just as the country is accused of helping to fuel a genocide in Sudan.

The trip comes as US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to focus more on helping end the atrocities Sudan civil war after being spurred into action by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who visited Washington this week.

Carney’s visit to the UAE, the first by a sitting Canadian prime minister since 1983, is not expected to include a news conference.

His hosts in the Emirates have excluded the media from the bilateral meetings that most countries open to visiting foreign press during high-level visits.

UAE Industry Minister Sultan al-Jaber staged a grand entrance for Carney, who stepped off his plane into a brightly lit corridor flanked by uniformed soldiers with rifles.

The pair walked down the hallway to a large, circular room where they were served tea by men in traditional clothing.

This week’s meetings are aimed at attracting investment from Emirati sovereign wealth funds and the private sector to help diversify the Canadian economy in response to the US trade war.

The visit comes after years of negotiations on an investment protection agreement that could expand private sector ties between the two countries.

While Carney’s plane was en route to the region, Air Canada and Emirates airline announced an extension until 2032 of a codeshare agreement signed three years ago. A code-share agreement allows airlines to market and sell seats on partner airlines, allowing them to offer connections to destinations outside their networks.

The UAE has come under increasing political pressure in recent weeks as human rights groups, a United Nations panel and Washington have accused the country of supporting a Sudanese militia that is committing shocking ethnic violence – something the UAE denies.

In April 2023, a civil war broke out between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces. The paramilitary RSF succeeded the Janjaweed militia that was behind the first genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2005.

The warring parties have blocked the access of humanitarian aid and the conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis.

In January, the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden said the RSF was committing a new genocide in the Darfur region. It has imposed sanctions on companies in the United Arab Emirates accused of supplying weapons to the militants with government support.

Canada has not joined the US in calling the crisis in Sudan a genocide.

In recent months, RSF members have posted gruesome videos on social media attacking ethnic groups and staging mass shootings in hospital rooms. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab says satellite images show pools of blood on the ground, indicating mass killings in multiple locations.

Rights groups say they believe planes meant to transport humanitarian aid from the UAE to Sudan are regularly delivering weapons instead. They cite the number of flights arriving in the region and the documented presence of weapons bearing UAE shipping details, and point out that gold continues to be exported from Sudan to the UAE.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is aware that a specific country is backing the RSF and said the unnamed country must stop. His statement was widely interpreted as a rebuke of the UAE.

On Wednesday, Trump said he spoke in detail about the civil war with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler during their talks at the White House on Tuesday. The crown prince, Trump said, urged him to use the power and influence of the presidency to end the war.

“His Majesty would like me to do something very strong having to do with Sudan,” Trump said in his remarks during a joint appearance with Prince Mohammed for U.S. and Saudi business leaders.

“I just thought it was crazy and out of control,” Trump said as he shared the stage with the crown prince. “But I just see how important that is to you, and to a lot of your friends in the room.”

Trump said Prince Mohammed told him that ending the war “would be the best thing you could do, that would be greater than what you have already done.”

It was not clear Wednesday what actions the Trump administration might take and whether it will publicly reprimand the UAE.

Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian ambassador to Sudan, said he was surprised to see the Carney administration refuse to single out the UAE in public statements.

Coghlan argued that it would not cause a diplomatic row if Carney publicly called on the UAE to respect an existing UN arms embargo on the Darfur region.

“There seems to be an excessive amount of effort being made in an attempt not to offend anyone,” he said in an interview.

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“The Emirates are a key player in this. There is simply no denying – even if they deny it – they are the main and principal financier of the RSF, who are certainly the more culpable of the two parties.”

The UAE ambassador to Canada was not available for an interview, but his delegation wrote in a media statement that it condemned the violence by the RSF.

“We categorically reject any claims that we have provided any form of support to any of the warring parties since the beginning of the civil war,” the embassy wrote.

While a UN panel of experts on Sudan has said there are “credible” reports of the UAE arming the RSF, the embassy argued that the report “makes clear that there is no substantiated evidence that the UAE has provided any support to the RSF, or has any involvement in the conflict.”

The embassy also said it follows global standards to track gold shipments and avoid conflicts — standards that “have enabled us to earn the trust of exporters from around the world.”

Coghlan said Canada will damage its reputation for defending the rules-based international order if it does not ask the UAE to respect the arms embargo and seriously investigate advocacy groups’ claims that Canadian weapons are reaching Sudan through the UAE.

“Those watching Sudan will be watching the prime minister’s visit closely,” he said. “This is hardly a violation of diplomatic protocol to call on an ally to comply with a Security Council resolution.”

He said the lack of global pressure has allowed the RSF and Sudanese armed forces to create a cycle of violence that threatens to engulf neighboring countries.

“If the UAE had really been pressured a year ago – before they ramped up all the arms sales – we wouldn’t have had the genocide that is, I would say, unquestionably going on in Darfur,” Coghlan said.

Carney is expected to meet senior government and business officials in Abu Dhabi on Thursday and Friday before flying to South Africa for the G20 leaders’ summit this weekend.

According to Global Affairs Canada’s online country profile, the UAE has “a strong and diverse partnership” with Canada that covers trade, “strengthening regional and global security” and poverty alleviation in other countries, including for women and girls. The UAE was a key partner in Canada’s resettlement of Afghans following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021.

The wealthy oil-producing state has invested in green technology and the fight against climate change through its massive sovereign wealth funds, which, according to Global Affairs Canada, “have already deployed significant capital in Canada.” Ottawa sees the potential for investment from the UAE in sectors such as energy, information technology, infrastructure and healthcare.

Canada exports weapons, aerospace products, motor vehicles and vegetables to the UAE, while more than half of Canada’s imports from the Emirates are iron, steel and aluminum, or products made from these metals.

Canadian exports to the UAE have shifted in recent years, with the Emirates bringing in large quantities of canola after China restricted imports of the Canadian crop between 2019 and 2021. Analysts believe that much of the canola that reached the UAE in recent years was re-exported to China.

Both Canada and the UAE say they want to promote human rights worldwide, but each government interprets that concept differently. The UAE is a predominantly Muslim country that sees itself as opposing oppressive forms of Islam in other countries.

—With additional files from Associated Press and Global News