Visiting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is scheduled
to meet with Sudanese opposition leader Mohamed Othman al-Merghani
in Cairo to probe Sudanese national reconciliation, the Egyptian
MENA news agency reported.
The talks between al-Bashir and al-Merghani, leader of the
Sudanese National Democratic Alliance (NDA), who has been living
outside Sudan for the past 17 years, is expected to call for a
historic national reconciliation conference as part of efforts to
bring together leaders of Sudanese political parties and groups,
the NDA Spokesman Hatem al-Ser Ali was quoted as saying.
Al-Merghani will try to convince Bashir to approve holding of this
conference, which will group Sudan's Umma Party leader al-Sadiq
al-Mahdi, Communist Party leader Mohamed Ibrahim Nuqqud, Popular
Congress Party (PCP) leader Hassan al-Turabi, al-Merghani, NDA
leader and Bashir as National Congress Party leader as well as
Salva Kiir, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM).
Al-Bashir, who arrived here on Monday on an official visit to
Egypt, hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on ways of
supporting stability in Sudan and efforts to solve the problem in
Darfur region.
Meanwhile, a tripartite summit of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi,
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Chadian President Idriss Deby
was held later Tuesday in Libya capital of Tripoli to discuss
issues over Sudan's Darfur and the relations between Sudan and
Chad.
Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awad said that Chad and
Sudan would intensify their coordination to get rebels in Darfur to
join the Abuja peace agreement to help resume peace in the war-torn
western Sudanese region.
Chad and Sudan have long traded accusations of backing each
other's rebel groups and witnessed a border clash along the western
Sudanese region of Darfur last month.
On April 9, Sudan announced that its army thwarted a
cross-border assault by Chadian troops in Darfur and repulsed the
attackers.
Initially denying its troops crossed into Sudan, the Chadian
government apologized on April 14 for the border clash erupted
inside Sudan, which killed 17 Sudanese soldiers and wounded 40
others.
At a meeting brokered by Saudi Arabia on May 3, Sudanese
President Omer al-Bashir and his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby
signed a reconciliation deal, which stipulates respects for each
other's territorial integrity, not to support opposition forces in
the other country.
(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2007)