UK House of Lords delegation to visit South Kordofan
April 7, 2018 (KHARTOUM) A visiting delegation from the UK House of Lords will visit South Kordofan State on Tuesday, said Sudan’s official news agency SUNA
The British delegation is headed by Lord Mohammed Altaf-Khan and it includes Baroness Jenny Tonge and Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
According to the agency, the visit aims to check on the peace situation and the disarmament campaign as well as the human rights situation.
The delegation would meet with the government officials and the native administration and will visit some parts of the state to examine the social coexistence experience.
It is noteworthy that the delegation would be accompanied by a group of Sudanese MPs headed by the Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Sub-Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mutwakil al-Tigani along with some members of the Sudanese-British Friendship Council.
The Sudanese army has been fighting the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/North (SPLM-N) in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, also known as the Two Areas since 2011.
In March 2016, Sudan and the UK held the first strategic consultations meetings between the two countries in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The meeting was considered the first talks of its kind at the ministerial level in 25 years.
The two countries agreed to exchange visits at the level of senior officials from the two countries along with increasing cooperation in the fields of economy, investment and culture.
Last December, a group of British MPs signed a letter to the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson ahead of a Sudanese-British economic forum warning the government against pursuing investment in a country rife with corruption and where the president is wanted for human rights violations.
(ST)