Sudan’s Bashir to attend ACP Summit in Ghana next month
September 22, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir will participate in the Sixth Summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group), that will be held the Ghanaian capital Accra next month.
Al-Bashir is also the chairman of the ACP and his country hosted the 5th ACP summit two years ago.
Sudan official news agency reported that Al-Bashir will lead a high level delegation to Accra where the Summit is scheduled to take-place in Accra from September 30 to October 3rd, 2008.
The Summit will be preceded by a meeting of the ACP Council of Ministers and ACP Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
ACP Secretary General, John Kaputin, is due to arrive in Khartoum next Wednesday in a three day visit where he will meet Al Bashir to brief him on the agenda of the sixth summit.
The summit is expected to express support for suspending the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment against the Sudanese president.
On July 25, the ACP had issued a statement in which the 79 state members slammed the ICC move calling it a threat to regional peace and stability.
Ghana is a state party to the Rome Statute which forms the basis of the ICC and has an obligation to arrest Al-Bashir if an arrest warrant is issued for him.
The decision for Al-Bashir to attend the APC summit was likely taken after it was announced last week that the ICC Judges requested a closed meeting with Ocampo in early October to receive more information on the case against Al-Bashir. This makes it very unlikely that an arrest warrant will be issued for him during his stay in Accra.
This will be Al-Bashir’s second trip since his indictment after one to Turkey in August which has been hailed by Sudanese officials as a sign of “courage” in face of the ICC accusations.
However at the time the Sudanese president hinted in an interview with Reuters that he may only visit countries which are not members of the ICC.
“We are not concerned about traveling, ourselves, we have good relations with a number of countries that do not have relations with the ICC” he said.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UNSC triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.