Bashir-Sarkozy summit in Egypt next year: report

November 21, 2009 (WASHINGTON) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and French president Nicolas Sarkozy will hold a joint summit next year on the sidelines of the France-Africa conference in Egypt, a pro-government newspaper reported.

The newspaper for the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) Al-Raed quoting “informed sources” said that the meeting will be sponsored by the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The French government has been pressing Cairo to exclude Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the war crimes allegedly committed in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

However, last month the ‘La Lettre du Continent’ newsletter based in Paris, reported that Egypt is unhappy on the request causing a delay in sending out the invitation.

The French interior minister Brice Hortefeux discussed the matter with Mubarak during their talks in Cairo last month.

Hortefeux said that France “submitted suggestions on practical organization [of the conference] that would secure a good environment. We discussed several options with Mubarak”.

The European Union (EU) charter prohibits contacts with individuals indicted by the Hague tribunal.

Last May Sudanese media reported that Sarkozy’s adviser for African affairs Bruno Joubert met with Bashir to follow up on the release of two abducted aid workers including a French national.

But Al-Raed said in its report that Paris informed Cairo that it “welcomes the participation of Bashir in the summit and will extend an invitation to him the coming period”.

The last meeting between the two men took place last year on the sidelines of the UN conference on Financing for Development in Doha. Khartoum has been lobbying Paris in its bid to defer the indictment of Al-Bashir by the ICC.

“I told him that the Darfur tragedy has now gone on for too long, that he must take initiatives and change things” the French president told reporters after his meeting.

However a few months later Sarkozy had tough words for Bashir saying that he was running out of time before the warrant was issued.

“Either he changes his attitude and the international community can talk to him, or he does not change his attitude and then he will face his responsibilities, notably before the International Criminal Court,” Sarkozy said.

“If the Sudanese president does not change his policy, no one will talk to him any more,” he said.

Paris has not been in Sudan’s good graces, analysts tell AFP, due to its support of the ICC warrant, its hosting of Darfur rebel chief Abdel-Wahid Al-Nur and its military presence in neighboring Chad.

(ST)