CAIRO (AlArabiya.net, Agencies)
Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Cairo on Wednesday on his second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted him on charges of war crimes in Darfur, airport sources said.
Bashir, who risks arrest when he leaves Sudan, is expected to discuss developments surrounding the ICC ruling with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.
Bashir is unlikely to face arrest in Egypt, which has close ties with its Sudanese neighbor and has called on the U.N. Security Council to suspend the ICC warrant.
Bashir briefly visited the politically isolated African nation Eritrea on Monday--his first venture abroad since the warrant. But Egypt is a major U.S. ally in the Middle East and a heavyweight in the Arab world.
Under the ICC charter, member states should arrest those indicted when they enter their territory. However Egypt is not an ICC signatory.
Even the United States, where the previous administration described the Darfur conflict as genocidal, said onTuesday it was under "no legal obligation" to arrest Bashir as it was not a signatory to the Rome statute.
Speculation has also risen about whether Bashir will attend a two-day Arab summit in Doha at the end of March. Sudan's highest religious authority, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, has issued a fatwa, or edict, urging him not to go. |
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Worsening situation in Darfur Bashir's visit to Egypt comes amid a worsening humanitarian situation in Darfur after Khartoum ordered the expulsion of 13 international aid agencies in the wake of the arrest warrant.
The United Nations warned onTuesday that it would appeal to international donors for extra funds following the expulsion of 3,142 aid agency staff.
The United Nations says 300,000 people have died-- many from disease and hunger-- and 2.7 million been made homeless by the Darfur conflict, which erupted in February 2003. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.
Bashir, the first sitting president to be issued with an ICC warrant, faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes, accused of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape and pillage in Darfur.
Many African and Arab states, along with key Khartoum ally China, have condemned the ICC move and called for the warrant to be suspended.
The Arab League and African Union have vowed to lobby the Security Council to suspend the court's proceedings. |
