Sudan’s Bashir receives British and French proposals to end ICC crisis – Alor
July 27, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan foreign minister disclosed that he submitted British and French proposal to the president of the republic in relation with the possible issuance of an arrest warrant by the international judges following the charges filed against him.
Last week Deng Alor visited Paris and London where he tackled on ways to counter the indictment of president Omer Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) judges through the UN Security Council.
The two countries urged Sudan to cooperate with the ICC and to hand over the two suspects wanted by the court for a first case on crimes against humanity and war crimes. They also requested to facilitate the deployment of Darfur peacekeepers and to quickly find a political solution for the conflict in the war torn area.
Speaking following a meeting with the UN envoy to Sudan Asharf Qazi, Alor said he informed al-Bashir of the propositions but declined to elaborate on it saying “they should remain confidential for the time being.”
“In my assessment, these proposals are good and they would be disclosed in a timely manner,” he added. Alor also pointed out that to end the crisis; the government needs to provide certain things and they submitted specific ideas about that.
The ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked pre-trial judges last week to issue arrest warrants for Al-Bashir.
Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. Judges are expected to take months to study the evidence before deciding whether to order Al-Bashir’s arrest.
This week Sudan accused France and Britain of lobbying against a Libyan proposal to include a paragraph that mentions the possibility of invoking Article 16 of the ICC Statue regarding the authority of the UNSC to suspend its work on a case.
The inclusion was going to be in a resolution extending the mandate of UN-African Union hybrid force (UNAMID) in Darfur which ends on July 31st.
(ST)