Thank you to the co-chairs for convening us here in Berlin.

Let me start by recognizing that we are facing a dire global situation. We have wars in the Middle East, in the Gulf, and in Ukraine.

There are so many things to be concerned about these days, and many people in this room are directly affected.

Still, Sudan is the number one humanitarian catastrophe in the world today. In numbers, in the degree of suffering, there is nothing worse.

The global consciousness has a low threshold for forgetting this crisis. It tends to be the number one forgotten crisis in the world.

But it is not forgotten in this room, thankfully, and that’s what united us here. So again, thanks to Foreign Minister Wadephul and Germany and everyone who brought us here. Sadly, not much has changed since the meeting in London last year, at least not to the better. There has been more suffering, more violence, more people dead, more women and children raped, more tragedy, more human rights violations, more violations of international humanitarian law. Today, this has lasted for three full years.

And I think we frankly have to recognise that the warring parties seem to be more bent on trying to win the war than to try to come to some kind of agreement. Sadly, this is a familiar phase in these kinds of wars, that the parties believe that they will win, so why would they compromise? Only later to realise that they are neither really winning or really losing, and then you come to a mutually hurting stalemate, and then, there might be an interest in talking. But if you wait until this happens organically, many more people die, more infrastructure is destroyed, all making it more difficult to recreate decent conditions for human life afterwards.

So it's incredibly important that everybody that has influence on either fighting party uses their leverage to stop the fighting, to convince them to engage in dialogue, to convince them to seek peace.  We need to work together to curb, as much as possible, the flow of arms. We need to insist on a humanitarian truce. And it's not enough to agree to a truce or a ceasefire. We also need it to be monitored.

This was very clear in the Jeddah Declaration, although it was not respected. And you need people who can actually protect the people who deserve their protection, in line with international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

Norway, as many, has been engaged in trying to lift the voices of the civilians in Sudan. We understand, of course, that the people who are part of the conflict also have to be part of a peace solution, but it cannot be the case that only the people with the biggest guns are allowed to decide when peace will come and what it will look like. So, we need to bring in civil society, civil political actors, and we need to come out of the logic that there are just two sides. There are a lot of people on the side of peace in Sudan. In Sudan, I think the vast majority of people would like to see a positive development, away from war, in favour of an inclusive, political solution.

The conflict in Sudan is a conflict in Africa. It's a conflict that, of course, is affecting neighbouring countries. It's also affected by tensions in neighbouring countries, stretching also into the Middle East, as we all know. And I think that when we talk about truce, ceasefire, international peace, it's not only about stopping the war, although that is the main goal. It's also what should be left behind after some kind of agreement is reached, and I think that's quite clear.

It has to be a Sudan that is peaceful, that is a Sudan for all Sudanese, that is civilian and democratically led, and very importantly, that is one Sudan. We do not want to see the country divided. And I want to make one point on the fact that this is a conflict happening in Africa. One thing Africa got right, both through the African Union today but also the Organisation for African Unity back since 1963, is the insistence on the principle that borders should stay where they are and that they shall not be changed by force.

And make no mistake, borders in Africa were not drawn by Africans. They were made by everybody else but Africans, and they might be haphazard, and illogical. But the recognition from a very early point in post-Colonial Africa was that if you start messing with borders, there is no shortage of problems that can occur. So, the very firm commitment by Africans, also rooted in the UN Charter, is to leave borders where they are, and solve problems inside the borders, as they exist.

And we should hold onto that, because I'm very worried that anything that would look like a division of Sudan into two or more parts is not only terrible for Sudan itself, but may also contribute to an unravelling of the very essential principles that borders should stay where they are, regardless of why they came there, and then human rights and prosperity and freedom should prevail on the inside of these borders.

And as I conclude, I want to welcome the UN SG Personal Envoy Pekka Haavisto,  my good Nordic brother, who has now taken on this challenging task.

There are many initiatives around Sudan, and many of them sound and well intended. I welcome them. But for the special envoy, I think it is important that we all listen to his advice on how all of this can come together in a proper way. It will be important to avoid a situation where we create the opportunities for forum-shopping, where a party, that do not like a particular process, will shift to another one with is more convenient for for them.

Colleagues, let us be honest. These things happen. Let's make sure that they do not happen in Sudan.

Let's make sure that we provide for a Sudanese-led and Sudanese-owned process. That it becomes a process by and for the people of Sudan, where we as the international community can constructively to assist.

Thank you very much.