welcome to hardtalk with me, zeinab badawi. events have moved at breathtaking speed in sudan in the past few days. omar al—bashir is no longer president and is under arrest. a new military—lead council is running the country and says it will stay in place for two years. but the african union is demanding handover to a transitional civilian administration in days. and the protesters say they won't give up until that happens. the demonstration have been led by young professionals who have made it clear they want to sever links with sudan's military and islamist past. my guest is ghazi salahuddin atabani, the chairman of an opposition grouping reform now. until 2013 he was a key advisor of president bashirfor a quarter of a century and was associated with leadership of the islamist wing in bashir‘s governing party. so, are politicians like him now irrelevant? ghazi salahuddin atabani in khartoum, welcome to hardtalk. one very clear outcome of these protests and revolution is that the old guard such as yourself are now politically irrelevant. isn't that right? us being circulating amongst the political class in general, but i don't think it's true. i think we have a growing coming up generation which is becoming relevant everyday to our politics. but we still have the old guard rule, we still count. why do you still count? because i'll tell you something that one of the generals said at a televised news conference on the 12th of april that mr bashir‘s national congress party would be excluded from talks because it was responsible for what happened. that is true, and you were once a member of the ncp, so that means people don't want you in the picture. these people, let people decide. that's what we say. we maintain our relevance in different walks of life and that's why we are asked our opinion. and sometimes, we form coalitions which are really effective in sudanese politics. maybe we are doing at the old way but i think we still get good results. i'll come on to what you are now offering the sudanese, but i have to ask you about your own credibility at the moment. because you have been tainted by association with president bashir. you were cabinet minister, a key advisor, the ultimate insider. you even lead the ruling national congress party in parliament. are you not too linked to that? well, i am quite clear about my position. and i think i had to reach a certain tipping point before i left the ncp. before that, i thought i would be doing better if i try to reform from within the party. that's something which many politicians have done around the world, and the fact that i haven't succeeded, did not mean that i was wrong in my choice. i don't feel that i have to apologise for what i have done. i'm still trying my best and in a way i'm producing results. but these are troubled times in sudan and they're not anything tojudge by. we're waiting for the outcome of these protests, the results might look shocking to some people as well. and i don't think we should rush to condemn those who are behind the present situation protests. nobody is rushing to condemn the protesters, one thing that they have said consistently, particularly the sudan professional association, the young professionals behind the protests, is that they want to re—secularise the sudan. can i ask you whether you are still sticking to your political islamist views? because you were very much from that wing of the ruling ncp when you were with them up until 2013. do you still want political islamism ? the fact is, way back, even before this race and the protest took place, there was a kind of revisionist islamist groups sprouting around the country, who demanded a new definition of religion, and it's wrong, and i think that's still valid. we don't want to fall in the trap of these dualisms, islamism, secularism, capitalism, socialism, etc. they are things of the past. so to start with, i don't like to characterise our thinking and introspection or internal dialogue as one between islamists and secularists. i think we have passed that stage. do you really think you have passed that stage? because one thing that's striking about these protests is the role of women. you've even got one young woman, who has become the symbol, the iconic symbol of the revolution. you've seen the young unmarried women going about the streets, right in the vanguard of this protest and yet, under 30 years of president bashir‘s rule, we saw that the rights of women deteriorated significantly during that time. and you were part of it, until five or six years ago. well, i think "deteriorated" is not a fair description because on the other side you can see a different role for women. in parliament, for instance, in public service, as professionals, everything. you find them everywhere you go. and they are certainly much more liberated than they used to be in the past. so it's unfair to draw a conclusion. there still are problems relating to the role of women in society, that's something to be recognised. but the situation of women is getting better. definitely, if you compare it to 30, 40, 50 years back. it's definitely better. it was dame rosalind marsden, former british ambassador to the sudan and also then after, special eu envoy for sudan who said that women's rights had deteriorated significantly during 30 years of president bashir‘s rule. but she's also said now that the scale of female participation is unprecedented. sudanese women have become aware of their power and their role as agents of change. whatever happens now, nothing is going to go back to how it was before. you can't turn the clock back, can you? i don't see why we should cut back on their gains and achievements. if you come and see the streets of sudan, our attention on certain issues relating to the heavier public freedoms, social freedoms issues, like we have a many other countries. but in essence, the movement of women and their achievements are forward—looking. ok, but on this issue, of the nature of the protests. your generation's very out of touch, isn't it? this is a very, very young revolution, my understanding is that when you, yourself, wanted tojoin the protest, you were prevented from getting out of your car. because people didn't want you to jump on their bandwagon. no, that's not true. that is absolutely not true. i was in the street, i was faced with the revolutionaries they demanded that i make the victory sign, i did the salute, and i passed on. i was not stopped by anyone. these are interpretations put on the true story. and i'm here, i came all the way from my house to the studio without having been attacked or pushed and shoved by anyone. i live my life as i did before this protest took place. general abdel fattah abdelrahman burhan is now the leader of the transitional military council. he has invited, as he says, all spectrums of sudanese people for dialogue. have you been invited? if they make the invitation and they send invitations, they would send us one, because we are a registered party by law and according to the constitution which is still valid, and so we have legitimacy to be invited to these official events. so the protesters are calling for a civilian led transitional government now, perhaps just limited representation. the african union is given the military counciljust about two weeks to hand over to a civilian administration. what is the likelihood of that happening? in past experiences, the african union, the period of required within which they should take action and have elections, we have seen this in other parts of africa. i don't think the country of sudan would be much affected by this decision if it were in the right past or officially launch a dialogue reinstituting democracy in sudan. in past experience, being cut off by the african union for 15 days did not prevent the country from surviving. other countries, in that case. and one can quote a number of them. there are countries which want to see sudan succeed. the united kingdom for instance, the british foreign secretaryjeremy hunt has treated that we need to see a swift move to an inclusive representative civilian leadership. uk is budging to help sudan write off its 50—odd billion dollars of external debt and so on. sudan needs friends like that at this critical time. it should hear what they are saying, no? absolutely. i completely agree with you and i think the uk is making the right decision and taking the right position in the respect. ultimately, we have to reach a conclusion, the sudanese will have to reach a conclusion of resolving our differences. but you see, having said that, the fact of the matter is, the last years since sudan signed the peace agreement, it hasn't been redeemed. it hasn't been rewarded adequately for the sacrifice it has made. so, most of the blame falls on the shoulders of other countries who have promised a lot and delivered very little. there's going to be a new situation in the sudan now so i suppose we'll have to see how much the community will extend. let's go back to what's going on now. let me tell you what the veteran sudan expert alex duvall says. he says, there is no centre of power with which to negotiate. that the power struggle within the security cabal that took power isjust beginning. bashir had kept the rivalries and ambitions in check, his removal brings in its wake, unregulated uncertainty. which faction in the security services, in the army, in the intelligence services is dominant at the moment? because there seemed to be several competing centres of power, as alex duvall suggests there. the prime force in sudan is the army. where the army takes sides, that side wins. this has been thriving in the past and has succeeded in ‘64 and ‘85 when we had similar revolutions, slightly similar. 30 years have passed and a lot of changes have taken place within those institutions in particular. because of the war that was raging in the south and other things, this tended to shape our lives in sudan. it very much affected us by military activity, and military confrontations in the south and other parts of the country. we need to get rid of that. the idea behind the compliance agreement as well is to get rid of that and have normal political life. that's what i call the solution. now, we have tried that over the last 30 years and i don't have any guarantees or indications that it would succeed now, and that's why the situation is very precarious in my view. it's changing all the time, and i tend to agree with duvall on the question of the vulnerability of the political system and also the fact that it's changing in a way that no—one can predict the final outcome. so, i mean, what will happen then? do you think that there will be a transitional government which will be civillian—lead? or do you think that the army will stay in power? we hear various statements coming from them, you know, generals saying military leaders are not hungry for power, generals will be the protectors of the people. what exactly does that mean? are they going to quit the scene and allow the civilians to take over, as the protesters are demanding? anything can happen. i just would like to say that there seems to be no mentality, no method to this madness so far. i can't predict what will happen tomorrow, all i know is that the politics we are practising today and the last five days is unorthodox, is unconventional, and therefore you cannot draw conclusions. people are panicking around the country, believing that life might change to something completely different and outlandish. so there is this kind of panic, you know, in the country, which no—one has the means to address. what do you mean panic? all we see — i don't know what you mean by panic. all we see is in khartoum and other major cities in the sudan are young people, older people rejoicing that they have seen the end of a 30 year dictatorship and what they hope will be the end of army rule, it doesn't seem like panic. it seems like euphoria. it's euphoria in parts, it's panic in other parts. what i'm saying is i'm seeing a division in the society. those past a certain age feel threatened and that is very natural for them. it could affect their status in life et cetera. the young are, you know, looking forward to a different life from the one they are living and did in the past 20—30 years. there is a clear generational gap here. one that can be identified easily, and is expressing itself through certain phenomena and statements by these protesters. these young people have a right to be vigilant, don't they, when they see that the national intelligence service still seems to be intact, you still have generals on the military ? on this transitional council, you see the sudan rapid support force is also represented on the military council, so they think well, president omar al—bashir may have gone, but the system he presided on ofr so many years is still in place, we have to be vigilant, we have to maintain our voices. you can't blame them doing that? i do not blame them. i am just stating the fact and the fact is that they feel threatened. they attacked the previous generation saying they were selfish, this has been common language for generations, now they have a chance to retaliate and to push back and they are doing it in a way that reflects inexperience. you sound very unsympathetic, sorry. you sound very unsympathetic, as though these are recalcitrant youth somehow. the protests in december last year — were very dire, there was rampant inflation, widespread unemployment, a report by the institute of international finance on april 10 shows that sudan continues to struggle with its balance of payments. you know, the situation was dire, these were notjust naughty young people as you seem to suggest. no. no, they are not. but the way you are formulating the questions is a problem. sorry to say that. you put them in a very confrontational way, a situation that is confrontational. mostly confrontational. i'm just being critical. critical of myself and certain people within the nation. so i don't consider them to be naughty children, i think they deserve our sympathy, cooperation and guidance if they wish to have those things. my three sons participated in the demonstrations and have been for the last few weeks, this applies to many people within the system. so i don't think the problem is one of the military or denouncing their behaviour. 0k. that was the implication of what you were saying. that was the implication of what you, the tone in which you gave your answer. yeah, well, i'm sorry, then. you put it sometimes in a way that one can't avoid answering if coming from a different point of view, but i'm definitely sympathetic. all right. let's take a look at the wider picture in sudan, notjust the urban protest. there is a lot of instability in regions of sudan, darfur, blue nile, a former south sudan diplomat said that a quick handover might lead to a fight using the uncertainty to pursue secession, is that a danger in your view? it is and has always been. it has been set aside, it has been ignored for some time because of problems in other parts of the country were more pressing. that was wrong. we hear news coming from those areas, pointing to the fact they are ready to splinter off from mainland sudan, which is troubling to us and agonising and at a time when everyone seems to be preoccupied with what's happening in the capital here. all right. well, happening in the capital we understand that is where the former president is bashir being held. he's somebody you got to know over many years, how do you think you'll be reacting to all this and his house arrest and talk of him being tried in the sudan, perhaps under international supervision, how do you think he'll be responding or feeling? he has done a lot of injustice to the country and to his own people and he should ? he should be held accountable for that and if he can be tried, that should also take place according to normal procedure. but i think about what we should focus on is the way he conducted the country and he managed the country, which was completely — i get the impression he was completely out of his depth. he had been advised several times by people several times by people. i had written him a memoranda of initiatives but he didn't seem to care. i don't think he had a real grasp of the situation and the problems he was facing and hejust messed it up. just messed it up. ghazi salahuddin atabani in khartoum, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. wednesday was a perfectly acceptable day for many parts of the british isles, but it may well be put in the shade by what we are expecting to see quite widely across the british isles on saturday. the temperatures could peak around london at 25 degrees. for those of you who have opted for the stay—cation for this particular holiday weekend, well, you are certainly beating those who have decided to head down anywhere really, from iberia right across to the eastern mediterranean. the reason for a settled spell of weather is that the jet stream, as we move through the weekend and into the start of next week, should be well away from the british isles. we're trapped on its warmer side. you'll notice there is a pocket of somewhat cooler air not a million miles to the west of us as we start the new week. more on that in just a second. thursday starts off rather cloudy across eastern scotland and the eastern side of the pennines, but as the day gets going that cloud dissipates. a little bit of fair weather cloud, not much more than that. on the east coast the onshore breeze is around ten, 11, 12. inland is widely in the upper teens, if not in the 20s. for all that we have to thank that big area of high pressure, which i'm sure you're getting used to, it's been there over scandanavia for a wee while. it will certainly dominate many of us as we get on through the weekend. friday, just maybe the odd passing shower to start the day in eastern parts of scotland, but friday is a really glorious day across many parts of the british isles. and those temperatures, notjust a south—east phenomena. widely in the upper teens. and again, many locations could see 20 — 21 or something in that order. a fly in the ointment as we move towards the weekend. the weather front will be pushed closer to the northern and western parts of scotland, maybe northern ireland too, tempering the feel of the day there certainly. but as i say, widely 22—23, maybe 2a or 25 across the south—east. not much change into easter sunday, we will have the remnants of that weather front trying to work its way down across scotland, thickening the cloud here, the odd spot of rain more, i suspect, towards the far north—west. sunshine rather hazy across northern ireland. but elsewhere, if you've got plans for the outdoors, get out and enjoy it. a word to the wise, the pollen is really quite high at the moment. and if you're out for any length of time, the uv levels are also worthy of consideration. come monday, the jet stream just trying to work an area of low pressure close to the western side of the british isles, but those fronts lingering far out west for many. easter monday too looking like a pretty decent day. hello, everyone. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: north korea says it's tested a new type of tactical guided weapon — the first missile test since the hanoi summit between kim jong—un and president trump joko widodo heads towards a second term as unofficial results put the indonesian president well ahead in the general election. supporters ofjoko widodo have come here to try to catch a glimpse of the man they have just voted in as this country's next president — for the second time. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme:

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