Sudan's Beshir cancels Turkey visit

2009-11-09

Beshir to return to Khartoum to seek to solve dispute between his ruling party, former rebels.

KHARTOUM - Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir, the target of an international arrest warrant, has scrapped a visit to Turkey to join key political negotiations in Khartoum, official SUNA news agency said on Sunday.

Beshir rang Turkish President Abdullah Gul to say he cannot spare the time to attend a meeting on Monday of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Istanbul, SUNA said.

The cancellation followed mounting speculation over Beshir's attendance at the economic summit of the Islamic grouping after the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, told the Ankara government it should bar or arrest him.

Sudan's leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western region of Darfur.

Turkey has pointed out it is not a signatory to the treaty which set up the Hague-based ICC, and that Beshir was invited to the meeting by the OIC and not Ankara.

"The Sudanese see and understand well the difficulties," a high-ranking Turkish diplomat who requested anonymity said ahead of the cancellation.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the AKP party, questioned the charges against Beshir and said that "no Muslim could perpetrate a genocide," according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.

"If there was such a thing (a genocide), we could talk about it face to face with President Beshir," the first sitting national leader the ICC has indicted, said Erdogan.

Beshir was in Egypt on Sunday, taking part in a China-Africa summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Aides said last week that the president intended to travel to Turkey but no final decision had been taken.

SUNA said Beshir has to return to Khartoum to "find a solution" to a dispute between his ruling National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the former rebel party from south Sudan.

The two sides signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 after 22 years of north-south civil war that saw largely Christian and animist rebels pitted against the Khartoum government.

The parties held talks on Sunday in Khartoum on disputes over plans for a general election in April 2010 and a referendum in January 2011 on independence for the south, political sources said.

"Because of the need to consult the president in coming days on these issues, (he) has put off his journey to Turkey," SUNA said,

China as well as several African and Arab countries criticized the ICC when it announced the arrest warrant, and Beshir promptly received an invitation to Cairo from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Many other critics say the ICC warrant singles out weak states like Sudan, while taking a hypocritical stance towards countries like the US and Israel by ignoring worse atrocities committed by them, and by not charging American and Israeli officials with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The OIC summit, set to address issues of trade and poverty, is expected to draw other Muslim leaders, including Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad and newly re-elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Istanbul for the OIC summit after Erdogan visited Tehran last month when the two countries signed partnerships on trade and energy.

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum and its allies.

Over the last six years, the rebels have fractured into multiple movements, fraying rebel groups, banditry, flip-flopping militias and the war has widened into overlapping tribal conflicts.

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease and more than 2.7 million fled their homes.

Many of the rebels enjoy direct and indirect foreign support that helped fuel the conflict, with some critics pointing the finger at France, which has a military presence in neighboring Chad – also accused of arming the Sudanese rebels.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35583.