US Bush, Nigerian Obasanjo to discuss Darfur

Mar 24, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — US President George W. Bush will welcome Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo for talks to include peacekeeping efforts in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, the White House said.

Bush will thank Obasanjo on March 29 “for his leadership as chairman of the African Union in the deployment of African troops in response to the genocide in Darfur,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

They will also take up “a broad range of regional and international issues including continuing cooperation in the areas of Darfur, regional security, energy security, fighting corruption, strengthening democratic institutions, and the need to bring Charles Taylor to justice,” he said.

Taylor, the former Liberian strongman, fled in 2003 for Nigeria and has lived there since. Obasanjo has come under increasing international pressure to allow Taylor to be tried for alleged crimes against humanity.

Obasanjo invited Taylor to Nigeria in order to bring an end to a 14-year-civil war which pitched the guerrilla chief turned elected ruler against two powerful rebel groups.

The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone has indicted Taylor on charges of sponsoring rebels who waged a gruesome war in that country’s 1990s civil conflict.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, on a red-carpet visit to the United States, called Tuesday for Taylor to be extradited home quickly.

She also told reporters that Bush had pledged to consult with African leaders “so that a fair decision is taken” on Taylor’s fate that would ensure “the stability of Liberia.”

(ST/AFP)