Arab League chief to visit Sudan on Tuesday

December 26, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa will begin a two-day visit to Sudan on Tuesday where he meet with senior officials in Khartoum and Juba.

The head of the Arab League Secretary General’s office Hesham Yousif, said that his boss will review progress in implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South as well get acquainted with preparations for the South Sudan referendum that will start in less than two weeks.

Moussa will meet with Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and president of South Sudan government Salva Kiir among others.

He will reportedly assure Southerners that Arab aid will not cease even if Southerners choose to create their own state in the upcoming referendum.

The semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper published in Cairo said that Moussa has scrapped plans to visit Darfur but provided no reason for that.

The visit by the Arab League Secretary General were originally scheduled for early December and it was only last week that Sudanese officials finalized arrangements for the trip. Last week, Moussa had denied cancellation of his travel plans but said that no final date was set and is pending coordination with Khartoum.

This month Wikileaks documents quoted prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo as saying to U.S. diplomats that Moussa told him that Arabs ” were frustrated with Bashir”.

Al-Bashir is hounded by two warrants issued for his arrest by the ICC against the background of the seven-year conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

(ST)