Sudan’s top military officer visited Egypt on Tuesday and held talks with its leader, authorities said, in his first trip abroad since the country plunged into a bitter conflict this year.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, chairman of the ruling Sovereign Council, arrived in the Mediterranean city of el-Alamein and was received at the airport by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the council said.

The two leaders discussed efforts to end the conflict in Sudan in a way that preserves “the sovereignty, integrity of Sudanese State,” an Egyptian statement said. The statement offered only generalities about the war.

Sudan plunged into chaos in mid-April when simmering tensions between the military, led by Burhan, and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.

The conflict has turned the capital into an urban battlefield, with the RSF controling vast swaths of the city. The military command, where Burhan has purportedly been stationed since April, has been one of the epicenters of the conflict.