Sudan keen on ensuring success of Arab summit – advisor

Dec 24, 2005 (CAIRO) — Sudan in keen on ensuring the success of the Arab summit, scheduled in March, and has thus undertaken preparations and measures for hosting the meetings, said advisor of the Sudanese president Mustafa OSman Ismail.

Speaking to Egyptian television Friday evening, Ismail said that his country was sparing no effort in resolving the Lebanese-Syrian conflict on coordination with Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, and the Arab League, stressing the need for this issue to be handled by Arabs.

He went on to say that Sudan, which will also be hosting the European-Caribbean-African summit, wants to provide a suitable atmosphere for the summit so as to remove defuse all tensions.

Ismail also said that it was important for the investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri to be legal and not political, as well as for the importance of removing any obstacles in Syrian-Iraqi relations.

On Darfur, the advisor said that the Sudanese government had designated USD eight billion for development projects in the region over the next three years, of which USD five billion would be paid from the government’s own resources.

On Tuesday, Ismael delivered an invitation from Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak to attend the African Summit to be held in Khartoum on January 23 and 24.

The summit coincides with Sudan’s 50th independence anniversary and the 1st anniversary of the signing of the peace agreements between the northern and southern parts of the country.

(KUNA/ST)