Mubarak on Surprise Visit to Sudan
05/04/2006| IslamWeb
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has made a surprise visit to Khartoum, his first in more than a decade, and held talks with Sudan's president on the conflict in the Darfur region.
Mubarak and Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, held talks on Tuesday on developments in the situation in Darfur, Sudan's state news agency reported.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, told reporters in Khartoum that the two leaders were pursuing "efforts to achieve peace agreement that provides stability and development to the people of Sudan and especially the people of Darfur".
Asked about sending Arab troops to Darfur, Aboul Gheit said this should be "within the framework of a peace agreement to be reached between the Sudanese government and the other parties of the conflict".
Mubarak has not visited Sudan since the 1995 assassination attempt on his life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which senior Sudanese officials were thought to have been behind.
The Egyptian leader did not attend a summit meeting of the Arab League held in Khartoum last week, saying he was busy with domestic issues.
The summit largely lent its support to Sudan, saying that UN peacekeepers should not be deployed in Darfur without the Khartoum government's permission.
The Arab leaders promised to help fund African Union peacekeepers in the region and increase the number of Arab soldiers in the force.
In their talks, Mubarak assured al-Bashir of Egypt's commitment to Sudan's "security and stability".
The Egyptian leader also called for an international effort to improve the situation in southern Sudan in the wake of a powersharing deal between Khartoum and former southern rebels, Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted Suleiman Awwad, a presidential spokesman, as saying.
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