Sudanese leader to visit Turkey
Sudanese leader to visit Turkey
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
ANKARA – Turkish Daily News
Sudanese President Omer Hasan al-Bashir who is held responsible by most of the international community for the death of almost 200,000 people and displacement of more than two million people in Darfur will visit Turkey next week as President Abdullah Gül’s official guest.
Al-Bashir will be welcomed with a military ceremony at the Çankaya Presidential Palace on Jan. 21 and stay at Caml? Kö?k where visiting heads of state are accommodated.
The Sudanese leader’s rule and his armed Arab militia are accused of massacring rebel African tribes in Darfur. The U.S. administration and some human rights organizations use the term “genocide,” while a U.N.-appointed tribune described the incidents as “war crime” and “crime against humanity.”
Al-Bashir’s visit marks a clear departure from Turkey’s general stance of avoiding high-level contacts with Sudanese officials. The ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) willingness to have contacts with the al -Bashir government had been curbed until now due to pressure from Foreign Ministry bureaucrats, who managed to convince Gül when he was foreign minister to ignore the Sudanese leader’s requests to visit Turkey. However, they were unable to stop Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an from going to Darfur in March 2006 to participate in a meeting of the Arab League. Erdo?an gave vocal support to al-Bashir during that visit when he said, “I believe that no assimilation or genocide was committed in Darfur.” The Sudanese leader has not waited long, after Erdo?an invited al-Bashir when they met during the Europe-Africa summit last December, according to sources familiar with the issue. Former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had stuck to the ministry line and refused to accept al-Bashir’s request to visit Turkey.
The Darfur conflict began in the impoverished region early in 2003 after a rebel group began attacking government targets saying the region was being neglected. Following the rebel attacks, the Sudanese government armed militias but denied any links to the Janjaweed, accused of trying to “cleanse” black Africans from large swathes of territory. The United States and some human rights groups said that genocide took place – though a U.N. investigation team sent to Sudan said that while war crimes had been committed, there had been no intent to commit genocide.
The prevailing view in the Foreign Ministry is that the West is working for the partition of Sudan, but the policies of al-Bashir facilitate this process instead or preventing it. While bureaucrats believe that the interest of Turkish businessmen in Sudan should be kept alive, they are also of the view that Turkish interests in the region can be promoted without necessarily having high profile contacts with the Sudanese.