Sudan, Chad to remove misunderstanding: embassy
April 15, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The Chadian Embassy in Sudan said on Saturday that what was happening between Chad and Sudan was only a “misunderstanding,” which should be removed.
“I hope that the two countries will manage to overcome the current misunderstanding between them,” Kabrous Dummy, charge d’affairs of the Chadian embassy, told Xinhua.
“We don’t expect that the Sudanese authorities will take any measure harming the interests of the two brotherly peoples,” he said.
“The historical relations extended to cultural and social fields between the two sides can not be abrogated by political regimes,” he said.
He said that the Chadian ambassador to Sudan was currently in the Chadian capital N’Djamena and is waiting for return to Khartoum at any time.
Chadian President Idriss Deby announced on Friday that his government had decided to break off diplomatic relations with Sudan, accusing it of supporting rebels who attempted to storm N’Djamena but were defeated by the army.
He also threatened to expel some 200,000 refugees from Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur out of the Chadian territories in retaliation for the rebel offensive on Thursday.
More than 350 people, including troops, rebels and civilians, were killed and 271 rebels captured in Thursday’s offensive on N’Djamena, according to a Chadian cabinet minister.
The Central African Republic on Friday announced the closure of borders with Sudan in order to block the way, by which the Chadian rebels from Sudan marched to N’Djamena.
The Sudanese government, however, denied any involvement in the fighting in eastern Chad, reiterating its commitment to the Tripoli agreement signed by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chadian President Idris Deby during a mini African summit in the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Feb. 8.
The two countries promised in the agreement that they would not harbor rebels on their territories or conduct mutually hostile activities.
Under the mediation of the African Union, the Tripoli agreement was reached at the key time after N’Djamena declared “a state of war” with Sudan and started a general mobilization preparing for a military escalation.
“The Sudanese government remains committed to the Tripoli agreement, and it is the time for the Chadian side to prove its commitment to the agreement instead of sending signals contrary to it,” the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The ministry said that it has summoned the Chadian diplomatic representative in Khartoum to ask him about his country’s decision on cutting off diplomatic relations with Sudan.
“The Sudanese government will determine what step it will adopt after receiving an official notification on the decision from the Chadian side,” the statement added.
It said that recent statements issued by regional and international organizations had affirmed that Sudan had nothing to do with the incident in Chad, which has been considered by Sudan as an internal affair.
Meanwhile, the United States asked Chad not to expel Sudanese refugees, urging N’Djamena “to uphold its responsibilities, as outlined by the United Nations, and international obligations to provide protection for these refugees as well as to provide international access to the refugees.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack criticized the Chadian president’s decision to sever diplomatic relations with Sudan, saying that Washington was unable to confirm whether Khartoum was involved in the fighting in Chad.
Hassan Mekki, a professor of the Sudanese African University, ruled out the possibility of a further deterioration in Sudanese-Chadian relations, saying that the two countries would surpass differences between them.
He called on the Sudanese government to pacify Chad’s anger and react rationally to Chad’s decision in an effort to avoid a war of wording with its west neighbor.
The professor warned that an escalation between the two countries would negatively affect the situation in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, as two dozens of tribes live along the 1,600 km-long border.
(Xinhua/ST)