Sudan's foreign ministry has dismissed a regional African summit's bid to deploy peacekeeping forces to protect civilians as the country enters its fourth month of armed conflict.

The ministry, which is attached to the Sudanese army led by military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had turned down calls from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to deploy a peacekeeping mission.

The decision on Wednesday dealt a blow to efforts to resolve the armed conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which started in mid-April.

IGAD is an East African regional body that called on all Sudanese parties on Monday to start new peace negotiations during a summit in Ethiopia's capital of Addis Ababa. IGAD made a bid to deploy the joint East Africa Standby Force (EASF) to protect civilians and provide humanitarian aid. 

The Sudanese army boycotted the IGAD mediation efforts on Monday and rejected the call by IGAD on Wednesday for Sudan to accept peacekeepers.

Iraq is set to start paying for Iranian gas imports with oil in order to avoid falling foul of US sanctions.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Tuesday said that Baghdad and Tehran had signed an agreement following several days of talks for "the import of Iranian gas to fuel Iraqi power plants, in exchange for Iraqi crude oil".

"The agreement aims to address the gas supply crisis for power plants, while tackling payment issues and complications arising from US sanctions," said the statement from the prime minister's office.

Iraq is reliant on Iranian gas for a third of its energy needs, but is unable to directly pay for it as a result of US sanctions on Iran, forcing the country to resort to a complicated mechanism for transferring funds.

According to the mechanism, payments were to be held in a bank account and - following approval from Washington - be used by Tehran to fund imports of food and medicines, a method which left Iraq in heavy arrears.

Earlier this month, Iran halved its supply of gas to Iraq because of unpaid bills of more than $12 billion, according to Sud...