The head of Sudan’s army has told the BBC he is willing to talk to the commander of rebel forces whom he is battling for control of the country.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he was ready in principle to sit down with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The two men have been fighting a brutal internal war since April, which the UN says has left more 5,000 people dead.

It says that more than five million people have been displaced.

Gen Burhan – who seized power in a coup in 2021 – was speaking to the BBC in a rare interview after addressing the UN General Assembly in New York.

He heads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and is on a global diplomatic tour seeking international support and some kind of legitimacy for his leadership, despite his failure to hand power to civilian authorities.

The general denied his forces were targeting civilians – despite the UN and charities saying there is evidence they are launching indiscriminate air strikes on residential areas.

He said he was confident of victory, but admitted he had been forced to relocate his headquarters to Port Sudan because the fighting in the capital Khartoum had made it impossible for government to continue.

Gen Burhan said he would sit down with Gen Dagalo – known as Hemedti – as long as he abided by commitments to protect civilians, made by both sides during talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May.

“We are ready to engage in negotiations,” Gen Burhan said.

“If the leadership of these mutinous forces has the desire to return to its senses and pull its troops out of the residential areas and return to its barracks, then we will sit with any of them… Whenever he commits to what was agreed in Jeddah, we will sit to resolve this problem.”

In a video message this week, Hemedti also claimed he was ready for political talks.

Both generals have talked about ceasefires before – but so far that has not led to any lessening in the fighting.

Gen Burhan denied Sudan would become a failed state like Somalia – or a divided country like Libya.

“Sudan will remain united. Sudan will remain a state intact, not a failed state. We don’t want what happened in the other countries you mentioned. The Sudanese people are now united behind one cause, ending this mutiny peacefully or by combat,” he said.

The UN has said that neither warring party appears close to a decisive military victory.

Gen Burhan said he was “definitely” confident of defeating the RSF. But he admitted the fighting had forced him out of the capital.

“In Khartoum, diplomatic missions, the ministries and all government organs cannot carry out their duties as normal,” he said. “Because it is a war zone, there are snipers and military operations taking place. That is why no entity can now work in Khartoum.”

There is widespread evidence that civilians in Sudan are dying in indiscriminate air strikes carried out by Gen Burhan’s forces in residential areas, particularly in Khartoum. But the general denied civilians were being deliberately targeted.

“This is not correct,” he said.

“There are fabrications of some stories by the rebel forces, they bomb civilians and film it as if it was the armed forces. We are professional forces, we work with precision and select our targets in areas where only the enemy is present. We don’t bomb civilians and we don’t target residential areas.”

The former UN special representative to Sudan, Volker Perthes, told the Security Council earlier this month that “often indiscriminate aerial bombing is conducted by those who have an air force, which is the SAF”.

The war in Sudan has reignited bitter tribal conflict, especially in Darfur in the west, where the RSF and supportive militias have been accused of mass killings, rape and torture.

Sudan’s ruling military has sacked six ambassadors and security forces have tightened their crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, even as international pressure against this week’s coup grows.

The decision, announced late on Wednesday on state media, included Sudan’s ambassadors to the United States, the European Union, China, Qatar, France and the head of the country’s mission to the Swiss city of Geneva, apparently over their rejection of the military takeover.

It came as demands are mounting for the army to walk back Monday’s coup that derailed Sudan’s fragile transition towards democracy following the removal of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 in a popular uprising.

On Wednesday, the African Union announced its decision to suspend Sudan from the bloc’s activities until the restoration of the country’s civilian-led transitional government, while the Word Bank froze aid and the United States paused $700m in emergency assistance.

Several Western embassies in Khartoum also said they will keep recognising deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his cabinet as “the constitutional leaders of the transitional government” of Sudan.

Meanwhile, protests denouncing the army’s power grab continued in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere, with many businesses shut in response to calls for strikes as part of a civil disobedience campaign that has also seen demonstrators blocking roads.

Reports said hundreds of protesters threw rocks at security forces dismantling street barricades in Khartoum’s eastern district of Burri, while in the capital’s north, security personnel fired tear gas and rubber bullets at dozens of demonstrators.

“Neighbourhoods and streets have been blockaded by armoured vehicles and men carrying rifles,” the information ministry, still loyal to Hamdok, said in a statement, also alleging that “women were dragged” to the ground.

“All security on the streets now look like the Bashir-era forces,” one protester lamented to the AFP news agency.

Neighbourhood committees have announced plans for further protests, leading to what they said would be a “march of millions” on Saturday.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Monday dissolved the transitional government and the Sovereign Council, the country’s top ruling body, as soldiers arrested several senior officials, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Despite the declaration of a state of emergency, tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters poured into the streets of Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman. The demonstrations were met with gunfire by the security forces, with at least seven people killed and dozens more wounded, according to health sources.

Speaking at his first news conference since announcing the takeover, al-Burhan said on Tuesday the army had no choice but to sideline politicians who were inciting people against the armed forces.

“The dangers we witnessed last week could have led the country into civil war,” said al-Burhan, who also pledged to hold elections in July 2023 and to appoint a technocratic government in the meantime.

Critics, however, doubt the military intent on eventually ceding control, noting that the coup came just weeks before al-Burhan was supposed to hand over the leadership of the Sovereign Council to a civilian.

Volker Perthes, the United Nations special envoy for Sudan, met al-Burhan on Wednesday and reiterated the UN’s call for a return to the transition process under the constitutional document and the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained.

Perthes also met Hamdok in his residence “where he remains under guard”, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Envoys from France, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, the US and the EU also visited Hamdok, who was reported as being in good health.