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Gadhafi lashes out at Saudi Arabia over Sudan-Chad peace deal

May 8, 2007 (TRIPOLI) — Libyan leader Muammer Gadhafi on Tuesday criticized Saudi Arabia for hosting a Sudanese-Chadian summit last week during which a peace agreement was signed.

Libyan_leader.jpgGadhafi said that a similar agreement had already been signed in Tripoli, in February, when Libya hosted a similar summit with the two nations.

“We are happy with anybody trying to contribute to solving the issue, either Saudis or anybody else, but … why sign the same agreement? Does this mean the former one has been canceled,” Gadhafi said.

Gadhafi’s comments came after Libyan, Egyptian and Chadian leaders met Tuesday in the Libyan capital to discuss the situation in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. The talks came a day after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s surprise visit to Cairo.

Gadhafi, who maintains close relations with some Sudanese tribes and rebel groups, has been involved in trying to solve the Darfur problem.

Libya-Saudi relations have been tense since the 2003 Arab Summit when Gadhafi traded insults with Saudi King Abdullah — then crown prince — on the conference floor, in a bitter televised exchange. The next year, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Tripoli over reports Libya had plotted to assassinate Abdullah, who assumed the throne in 2005. Libya has denied the accusations.

Last week, Abdullah hosted al-Bashir’s meeting with Chadian President Idriss Deby in Riyadh, where the African leaders signed an agreement upon which the two countries — which share a 600-mile border — pledged to work together to quell the violence spilling over from Darfur and prevent opposition groups from staging cross-border attacks.

Gadhafi on Tuesday alleged that Deby and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak conveyed to him a message from al-Bashir, whom visited Egypt on Monday, that Saudis forced the deal on the two Africans.

Gadhafi said al-Bashir and Deby were invited “to sign a ready-made deal, despite assurances by the two that they already signed” such a deal in Libya. “This is funny,” Gadhafi told reporters.

The outcome of Tuesday’s talks on Darfur in Tripoli was not immediately known.

Late last month, Libya hosted a conference aimed at exploring ways to persuade the groups fighting in Darfur to sign a comprehensive peace agreement after the Sudanese government and one major rebel group signed the Darfur Peace Agreement last year. But despite the 2006 agreement, violence has increased in Darfur.

Ethnic African rebels have been battling the Arab-led Sudanese army and the pro-government janjaweed militiamen in Darfur for the past four years, killing some 200,000 people and turning the region of western Sudan into the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.

(AP)

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