June 14, 2008
President Thabo Mbeki will visit Sudan on June 17 and 18,
Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Friday.
Mbeki will hold talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir
and with former rebel leader and First Vice President Salva
Kiir.
Pahad said Mbeki would focus on the problems threatening the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Southern rebels
and the government which was signed in 2005.
The agreement brought peace in Southern Sudan after a war
lasting over 20 years.
Mbeki would also discuss problems preventing the full
deployment and functioning of a United Nations-African Union
peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region.
The UN says up to 300 000 people have died from the combined
effects of war, famine and disease and more than 2,2-million
have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict broke out in
February 2003.
Sudan urged to move towards peace
on Thursday state media said, Chinese President Hu Jintao
called on the Sudanese government to take a series of steps
toward peace in its Darfur region, as it seeks to deflect
criticism over its ties with Khartoum.
Hu's comments to visiting Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman
Taha were unusually strong given China's close relations
with Sudan, where it is a major investor in the oil industry
and to whom it sells arms.
To ease the situation in Darfur, Sudan "should push forward
the peacekeeping mission and political process in a balanced
manner, quickly restore political negotiations and strive to
ensure the talks achieve substantial progress", the
Communist Party newspaper People's Daily quoted Hu as
saying.
Khartoum should also "push forward the relevant parties to
realise a comprehensive ceasefire and to continually improve
the humanitarian and security situation and on this basis
help the people of Darfur to rebuild their homeland", he
said.
Hu's comments mark a change in tone from Vice President Xi
Jinping, who told Taha on Tuesday that China appreciated the
"unremitting efforts" Sudan has made in trying to end the
Darfur crisis.
More than five years of conflict in Sudan's western region
of Darfur have killed 200 000 people and driven 2,5-million
from their homes, international experts say. Khartoum puts
the death toll at 10 000.
Rights groups say China's engagement with Sudan fans the
violence there with investments that they say prop up its
government, and have called on China to leverage its ties to
do more to push Khartoum to resolve the conflict.
The issue also prompted film director Steven Spielberg to
quit as an artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics and
forced China defend its right to hold the Games, which open
on August 8.
China has highlighted its development aid to Sudan, the
engineering corps it deployed to join the hybrid United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping force there and says its
trade is creating wealth for Sudan's people.
In the remarks to Taha, Hu urged the international community
to increase aid to Darfur, especially development aid.
During Taha's visit, the two countries signed deals on
agricultural cooperation that would see China help Sudan
build a pilot agricultural centre and send agricultural
training experts there, Xinhua news agency reported.
Taha also criticised what he called attempts by some foreign
countries to make Darfur into an international issue.
"Their attempts infringe on Sudan's sovereignty," Xinhua
quoted him as saying. |
