Sudan says it supports Libyan opposition

July 5, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese government sympathizes with Libyan rebels who waged a military campaign since February to topple the 41-year rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a presidential aide said today.

Gaddafi is fighting an armed rebellion that initially started as a popular uprising in mid-February. The Libyan opposition managed to control most of the Eastern side of the country. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in March authorized a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Libya and using all necessary means to protect civilians.

Sudanese officials have expressed support to the NFZ and also started lashing out at the Libyan leader accusing him of conspiring against the country in the past.

In an interview with the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie said that Sudan backs the Libyan people’s ” desire for change” adding that they see the Transitional National Council (TNC) as a leader of this movement.

However, Nafie denied that they provided any military aid to TNC.

“The only support that we are giving to our brothers in Libya is support in the humanitarian field where we send our doctors who carried whatever drugs they could take. There was help from organizations backed by the government to provide some food and there were a number of trips led by doctors from the Sudan and a group of assisting medical staff that went with available convoys of food” Nafie said.

Last week Sudan has denied reports that it has occupied the Southern Libyan town of Al-Kufra, a key strategic foothold between the regime and the opposition TNC.

Libya borders Sudan and its western region of Darfur in which conflict between the Sudanese government and ethnic rebels killed 300,000 people and displaced more than 2.7 million since it erupted in 2003, according to UN figures.

Relations between the two countries have seen ups and downs particularly over the Darfur conflict. At one point Libya was accused by Sudan of aiding the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attack on Libya in May 2008.

However, it was Gaddafi that pushed the African Union (AU) to grant Bashir immunity from arrest in the continent despite an arrest warrant against him issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.

Last March Reuters quoted unidentified diplomats at the UN as saying that Khartoum has given NATO permission to use its airspace in enforcing the NFZ.

(ST)