Sudan sets conditions to normalize ties with Eritrea -FM

KHARTOUM, May 17 (AFP) — Sudan has demanded that Eritrea not harbour armed Sudanese opponents or offer them assistance as a condition for normalising relations, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said Tuesday.

In a meeting with Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki in Tripoli, President Omar al-Beshir “demanded that Asmara refrains from harbouring armed Sudanese opposition and stops offering assistance to that opposition,” Ismail told reporters at Khartoum airport on returning with Beshir from Tripoli.

The minister said the encounter in Tripoli was “an important step”, but that there will be no normalcy until Asmara fulfils the “commitments it has placed for itself and affirms its readiness to cooperate for removing the obstacles that hinder the restoration of relations to normalcy.”

Ismail said Beshir explained in detail at the meeting, also attended by Libyan leader Moamar Khadafi, the obstacles to normalisation and “the inevitability of removing them.”

He said Afeworki stayed behind in Tripoli to “discuss with the Libyan leader the demands set by the Sudanese government.”

The foreign minister said the Tripoli mini-African summit had set June 1 as a date for resumption of talks between Khartoum and the Darfur rebel movements in the Nigerian capital Abuja.