Dialogue delegates to tour Sudan’s disputed areas

January 25, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – The National Dialogue Conference is dispatching delegates to inspect disputed areas with neighbouring countries and to discuss the phenomenon of the presence of extremist Islamic groups in West Darfur.

Sudan has a dispute with Egypt over the border triangle of Halayeb ever since the country’s independence in 1956. .The country is also locked in a dispute with the new nation of Southern Sudan over the Abyei enclave.

Chairman of Dialogue’s External Relations Committee Omer Barido said his committee has dispatched a number of its members to get first- hand information about disputed zones in six of the country’s border states.

Barido said the delegates would visit El-Fasher, Nyala, El-Geneina, Gadaref, Kassala and Port Sudan.

“The committees are assigned to look into the citizens’ conditions in the six border states and inform the public therein about the progress of the National Dialogue, ‘’ he said.

Barido said his committee is keen about amicable solutions with neighbouring countries. He said the aim of the visits is to ‘’reaffirm that Sudan will never disown even an inch of its territories.’’

He expected the delegates to present their reports to his committee next Monday.

In the same context the semi-official Sudanese Media Center (SMC) on Monday quoted chairman of the delegation visiting Halayeb Triangle, Omar Fadl, as saying that his delegation has proceeded to Halayeb and that the visit was out of the conviction that Halayeb is a Sudanese territory.

“The aim of the visit is to get first hand information about the citizen’s conditions in Halayeb and to inform them about what the Dialogue Conference committees are doing in order to tackle the situations in the disputed areas,’’ Fadl said.

He disclosed that consultations were underway about a planned visit by a six-man delegation from the External Relations Committee to Abyei.

In al-Geneina, capital of West Darfur state, the visiting delegation listened to a briefing from the State Government about the border issues with neighbouring Chad .

According to the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA), the delegation’s meeting with West Darfur Government discussed the problems facing the region, in particular the phenomenon of extremist Islamic groups, alien cultural and intellectual influence, security problems along the common border, besides contraband and the smuggling of strategic commodities .

During the meeting, the West Darfur Government called for the enactment of laws and regulations that organize border trade and enforce law and order.

Delegation Member Omer Suleiman said the aim of their visit to West Darfur was to see the challenges facing the State’s Government and its citizens in border areas and report about it to the National Dialogue Secretariat.

The findings , he said, will be included in the dialogue’s final document.

Meanwhile, a delegation of the Conference Economic Committee will, start a tour of border cross points with neighbouring countries on Tuesday.

Member of the dialogue’s economic committee al-Fatih Abdallah, who chairs the foreign trade’s subcommittee, said a delegation will commence its visits to the border cross points on Tuesday.

Abdallah said the delegation would inspect the Goda cross- point in the White Nile State to energize the trade agreement with Southern Sudan and look into the problems and impediments of trade there.

He said the delegation would then proceed to Gadaref to inspect the Gallabat cross-point with Ethiopia and then to Kassala near the common border with Eritrea.

The delegation will then proceed to the Red Sea State to inspect the sea ports there.

(ST)