US envoy snubbed at his arrival in Khartoum

Oct 13, 2006 (KHARTOUM) Sudan snubbed newly appointed US presidential envoy Andrew Natsios on his arrival in Khartoum Friday for his first visit since taking up his post, security officials said.

No foreign ministry representative turned up at the airport to welcome Natsios as normally demanded by protocol, the officials who blocked an AFP correspondent from reaching the airport terminal said.

The snub was intended as “reciprocal treatment” for Washington’s attitude towards the Khartoum authorities, the officials said without elaborating.

The US administration, which had already complained of restrictions imposed on its diplomats travelling outside the Sudanese capital, had expressed concern about Khartoum’s willingess to cooperate with its new envoy.

Natsios is hoping to visit the war-torn western region of Darfur and the newly autonomous south during his six-day visit, aides told reporters in Washington before his departure.

Sudanese officials would confirm only a planned meeting with Foreign Minister Lam Akol Saturday. The minister is a representative of the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the national unity government established by a January 2005 peace deal.

Relations between Khartoum and Washington have deteriorated sharply over insistent US-led calls for UN peacekeepers to take over from an overstretched African Union observer mission in Darfur.

(AFP/ST)