Sudanese FM cancels Egypt visit amid tensions

By Mohammed Amin

KHARTOUM, Sudan

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour cancelled a scheduled visit to Cairo on Monday amid ongoing tensions between the two neighbors.

The move comes shortly after accusations by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that Egypt was arming and supporting anti-government rebels in Darfur.

Al-Bashir leveled the accusation last Tuesday, drawing strenuous denials by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.

Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Garib Allah Alkhidir, for his part, told Anadolu Agency on Monday that the visit had been postponed due to Ghandour’s “busy schedule”.

“The foreign minister had planned to meet his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shokri this week as part of a scheduled meeting of the Sudan-Egypt political consultations committee,” the diplomat said.

“Both ministers had a lot of business and meetings to attend to, however, so we preferred to postpone the meeting to another time,” he added.

Alkhidir went on to say that contacts were underway between officials at both ministries with a view to setting a new date for the planned meeting, which, he said, “could be next week”.

Wednesday’s scheduled meeting between the two foreign ministers had been intended to follow up on an earlier meeting held last month in Khartoum where the two men discussed a ban on Egyptian agricultural exports to Sudan and a recent exchange of barbs between the two countries.