Sudan’s Bashir in Ethiopia for IGAD summit

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

July 4,2010 (ADDIS ABABA) – Sudanese President , Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir later on Sunday arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to take part in the Extraordinary IGAD Summit on Somalia which will be held on Monday.

Up on arrival at Bole international Airport, the Sudanese president was welcomed by Ethiopia’s culture and tourism minister, Mohamed Drirr and other senior government officials.

On the sidelines of the summit, Al Bashir is expected to meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and other IGAD Heads of States to confer bilateral relations and regional issues of common concern.

A number of leaders and delegations of IGAD member states have been arriving today in Addis Ababa to take part in the session.

According to Ethiopia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the 15th Extra -Ordinary Session of IGAD Heads of State and Government on Monday will deliberate on peace and stability situation in Somalia and ways forward to bring lasting solution for security and political troubles engulfing the country.

The 36th Extra-Ordinary Meeting of the IGAD Council of Ministers was held here on June 15, 2010 where the council had recommended to the IGAD Summit to convene an urgent extra ordinary summit at earliest opportunity to review the serious political and security development in Somalia and the region with the objective of re-engineering the whole process.

Accordingly, the summit is expected to review the 36th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD council of Ministers, report of the IGAD Military Experts’ Mission to Somalia and consideration of the Draft Communiqué of the 15th Extraordinary Summit of IGAD Heads of State and Government.

Established in 1986, IGAD has member’s country of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is the current Chairperson of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government.

(ST)