Sudan leader to discuss Darfur force on South Africa visit

November 4, 2007 (JOHANNESBURG) — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir will visit South Africa this week for talks over the situation in war-torn Darfur and political upheaval in Khartoum, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

The three-day visit from Monday takes place “within the context of South Africa’s support for peace efforts in the Sudan and our priority to consolidate bilateral political, economic and trade relations with Sudan,” South Africa’s Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said in a statement.

Beshir was scheduled to hold talks with President Thabo Mbeki in Cape Town on Tuesday when he would also be guest of honour at a state banquet.

The talks at Mbeki’s official residence would focus on the progress towards the dispatch of a hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the western Darfur region, said the foreign ministry statement.

The upheaval caused by the recent decision by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to pull its ministers out of the government in Khartoum in protest at slow progress in implementing a peace agreement would also be discussed.

(AFP)