Sudan to protest to UN over Eritrea

KHARTOUM, June 26 (AFP) — Sudan plans to lodge a protest with the United Nations against Eritrea, accusing it of seeking to stoke instability after a rebel offensive in the east of the country, the state-run SUNA news agency said Sunday.

The agency quoted Sudan’s UN ambassador Al-Fatih Irwah as saying that Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail would hand Secretary General Kofi Annan a written complaint Monday against “the Eritrean regime and its irresponsible practices aimed at destabilising Sudan and undermining the peace process.”

Opposition rebels launched an offensive in eastern Sudan’s Red Sea State last week in an operation Khartoum said was carried out with the complicity of neighbouring Eritrea. Officials in Asmara have denied the charges.

SUNA said Ismail would meet members of the UN Security Council on Monday for talks that would also cover the January peace accord that ended 21 years of war in Sudan between the north and the south and the government’s reconciliation deal with the opposition.

Rebels in eastern Sudan accused the government at the weekend of launching an intensive aerial bombing campaign on civilian targets in the Red Sea State in retaliation for losing a ground ground battle against the opposition Eastern Front.

The eastern rebels, who launched an offensive near the country’s main Port Sudan, have accused Khartoum of pursuing a policy similar to that used in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region.

Both the eastern and western groups claim their regions are being marginalized by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.