Sudan’s President Al-Bashir to visit Egypt Tuesday
March 7, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir will travel on Tuesday to Cairo in the first visit by an Arab President to Egypt since popular uprising ousted its President Hosni Mubarak last month.
Al-Bashir’s visit comes in response to an invitation by the head of Egypt’s Higher Military Council Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
He will be accompanied by a number of his aides, including the head of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), Mohamed Atta, and the minister of presidential affairs Bakri Hassan Salih.
Mubarak backed Al-Bashir against the warrant issued for his arrest by the ICC. Egypt, which is not a member of the Hague Tribunal, has received Al-Bashir on several occasions since the warrant was issued.
The state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported that Al-Bashir would meet Tantawi and a number of Egyptian officials. The agency quoted Sudan’s ambassador in Cairo as saying that Al-Bashir’s visit comes as a confirmation of Sudan’s supportive position towards the Egyptian people.
The Sudanese government at first maintained silence as protests shook the rule of Mubarak, but following the announcement of Mubarak’s resignation on February 11 Sudan welcomed the “triumph” of the Egyptian revolution in order to “shore up democracy.”
President Al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since he seized power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, was elected President in last year’s general elections which were mired in reports of mass fraud and intimidation of voters.
Sudan’s relations with Egypt have seen ups and downs during the last 21 years, reaching its nadir in 1995 when a group of Islamists allegedly back by Sudan attempted to assassinate Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
But relations between the two neighbors gradually improved after the 1999’s ousting of Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi, whom Egypt accuses of planning the failed attempt.
(ST)