Sudan seeks to end crises with Egypt

A senior political aide of the Sudanese president has said that the country’s strategy is to end all of the crises with Egypt and all other African countries, Masralarabia.com has reported.

“[Sudanese] relations with Egypt need a deliberate and penetrative treatment away from sentimentality,” Ibrahim Mahmoud told journalists on Wednesday. “We are seeking good relations with all the neighbouring countries and this needs many efforts.”

His comments were made after the Egyptian authorities detained and deported Sudanese journalist Iman Kamaliddin when she landed at Cairo International Airport on Monday. That was 24 hours after deporting another Sudanese journalist, Al-Taher Sati, who criticised the Egyptian authorities over their insistence that the disputed border neighbourhood known as Halayib Triangle is Egyptian, not Sudanese. He used his article to condemn what he called “Egyptian abuse” of his country. Earlier this week, the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum refused to grant a visa for yet another journalist from Sudan, Haytham Othman.

These measures come in the wake of the agreement between the Egyptian and Sudanese foreign ministers to commit to a Code of Conduct to prevent the abuse of one country by the other.

On Tuesday, the General Journalists’ Syndicate said that the detention and deportation of Sudanese journalists is a “clear targeting” of all Sudanese journalism in a sovereign country. The union rejected any Code of Conduct before an Egyptian review of how the authorities deal with journalists from Sudan.