Egyptian president to meet with VP Taha during his visit to Cairo

February 3, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak will hold talks with Sudanese 2nd Vice president Ali Osman Mohamed Taha during his visit to Cairo that starts this weekend, Sudan official news agency (SUNA) reported today.

SUNA reported that Taha will also hold talks with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazeef to discuss bilateral ties and latest regional and international developments as well as meeting with Sudanese expatriates living in Egypt.

The Sudanese VP will be accompanied Minister of International Cooperation, Al-Tigani Fideil, the Minister of Information and Communication, Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Mohamed Yusuf Abdallah, the governor)of Khartoum State, Abdul-Rahman Al-Khidir, the State Minister at the Council of Ministers, Kamal Abdel-Latif, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ali Karti, the Director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), Mohamed Atta, Chairman of the Sudanese Businessmen Union, Saud Al-Berair, and Chairman of the Trade Chamber, Yusuf Ahmed Yusuf.

This will be the first meeting of its kind in almost two years between Mubarak and the man widely believed to have been one of the main masterminds behind his assassination attempt in Ethiopia back in 1995. The Egyptian president narrowly escaped and flew back to Cairo accusing Khartoum of supporting and harboring the assassins.

Cairo enjoys far less warm relations with Taha as compared to president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir because of that. In one incident Mubarak refused to meet with Taha when he was in Egypt and instead met the next day with a special envoy to Bashir who was the then minister of information Mahdi Ibrahim.

Makram Mohamed Ahmed, a prominent Egyptian journalist with close links to presidency, revealed at the time that Mubarak did not want to receive someone “who conspired to kill him”.

It is not clear what the primary motive behind the visit. Egypt is closely monitoring the development in the South months away from voting in a referendum which will determine their fate either as part of united Sudan or a separate state.

Taha is the official in the ruling National Congress Party responsible for relations with Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) which rules the semi-autonomous region.

Cairo is increasingly worried over the growing probability of South Sudan opting for independence in the 2011 referendum warning that this will further deepen poverty and ethnic violence in the new state.

South Sudan president Salva Kiir paid a visit to Cairo last year where officials there expressed hope that his citizens to vote for unity.

But Kiir told reporters after his meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak that Southern Sudanese will likely vote for independence because unity has become “unattractive”.

Sources at the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) told Sudan Tribune at the time that Kiir cut short his visit to Egypt “after feeling uncomfortable with the level of pressure exerted by Egyptian officials on the issue of preserving Sudan’s unity”.

Egypt is likely concerned over the its share in the Nile water if the South chooses to secede even though legal experts say that the water agreements are still binding to the new state.

The Egyptian government has stepped up its presence in South Sudan inaugurating projects in the health and education sector saying they hope it will make the unity choice more attractive.

(ST)