Sudan says ready to normalize ties with Chad

May 24, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan renewed its support today to the Qatari efforts to ease tension between the Sudan and expressed readiness to normalize bilateral ties.

President Omer Al-Bashir met Sunday with the visiting Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs, Ahmad bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud, who delivered a message from the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani related to Doha’s efforts to normalize the relations between the two neighboring countries.

Qatar also is engaged in a peace process to end Darfur conflict since last year.

“We expect to achieve reconciliation between the two neighboring countries in the near future,” the Qatari official said in a statement made after his meeting with the Sudanese President. He also stressed that Al-Bashir supports the joint efforts held with Libya to end the current tension between Sudan and Chad.

Al-Mahmoud further said he would travel on Sunday to Ndjamena to convey a message from the Qatari Emir to Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno on relations between Chad and Sudan.

He also expressed hopes that a reconciliation deal soon could be sealed in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Qatar coordinates its efforts with Libya, which holds the chairmanship of the African Union.

Libyan deputy foreign minister Ali Abdelsalam Al-Triki was in Khartoum last week to deliver a message from the Libyan leader to the Sudanese president on the tension with Chad. Triki expressed hope to revive what was agreed between the two countries and find a mechanism to stop border incursions by both sides.

The Qatari minister said that a meeting would be held in Doha by the special envoys of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union on next Wednesday, which would coincide with the beginning of peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel Justice and Equality Movement.

France too had asked the Libyan leader to contribute to the resolution of the Sudan-Chad tension.

The Qatari officials seek to end the current tension between the two countries and to stop the fighting in Darfur in order to create the necessary conditions for a successful political settlement of the Darfur crisis.

Sudan and Chad signed a deal to normalize relations on May 3 but the Chadian rebels attacked into eastern Chad two days later.

(ST)