Sudan Airways resumes flights to Uganda

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Mar 7, 2005 (PANA) — In what is widely seen as a clear
improvement of chequered relations between the two countries,
Sudan’s national carrier has resumed regular flights between
Khartoum and the Ugandan town of Entebbe.

Several ministers and senior government officials boarded the
inaugural flight last Saturday, according to the Sudanese News
Agency (SUNA), which noted that Sudan Airways was resuming
flights to Uganda after a suspension that lasted more than 10
years.

At a ceremony in the Ugandan resort town of Minio to mark the
resumption, Sudanese Aviation minister Ali Tamim Fartak said it
was part of moves by national carrier to reach new destinations
with freight and passengers alike.

Also hailing the development, the ministry of Finance and Economy
said it would firm up trade and business connections between the
Sudan and the entire East African Community.

Foreign Trade minister Abdul-Hamid Musa Kasha was equally elated,
saying the move was in consonance with agreements reached within
the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMMESA) to
enhance trade ties between member states.

Kasha urged Sudanese and Ugandan businessmen to establish joint
ventures, insisting that with the return of peace in southern
Sudan, the stage was now set for increased trade between the two
neighbours.

Khartoum and the separatist Sudan Peoples Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed a comprehensive peace agreement
last 9 January in Nairobi, Kenya ending two decades of war in the
south.

Relations between Sudan and Uganda had all along those years of
conflict been strained by mutual suspicion, with Khartoum
allegedly providing rear bases for the Uganda Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) and Kampala doing same for the SPLM/A.

Sudan Airways already has regular flights to Chad, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania.