Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum on Wednesday for talks with his Sudanese opposite number, Omar al-Bashir, bringing together two leaders who have been increasingly defiant in the face of Western pressure.
Ahmadinejad said the trip was aimed at further bolstering ties between the oil-rich Islamic states — both considered state sponsors of terrorism by Washington — after Bashir visited Tehran in April 2006.
”Relations are at a very good level … We have many economic and cultural projects, in agriculture, energy and oil exploration in Sudan, and culture. Good work has been prepared and agreements will be signed,” he said before leaving Tehran.
Ahmadinejad is expected to hold talks with Bashir and first Vice-President Salva Kiir, Vice-President Ali Osman Taha, as well as other senior regime officials during the two-day visit.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki expressed hope that Iran would be able to use ”tractor diplomacy” in Africa after its success in forging strong relations in Latin America by exporting Iranian tractors there.
”We will transport to Africa the successful Latin American tractor diplomacy that allowed us to distribute Iranian tractors. Africa could be the second place for this diplomacy.”
Iran’s ambassador to Khartoum, Reza Amiri, said he hoped business partnerships could help increase the volume of two-way trade to $70-million a year from $43-million now.
Iran has also offered its expertise in the field of oil exploitation, an area currently dominated by China, India and Malaysia.
However, an issue that has also been at the heart of Iranian-Sudanese ties recently is military cooperation and Sudanese Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein has visited Iran three times in the past year.
The latest trip was in January, when he met Ahmadinejad, who expressed his full support for Khartoum’s rejection of the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the war-torn western region of Darfur.
Hussein, a former interior minister and presidential adviser, is considered a key suspect by right groups in the atrocities in the Darfur conflict over the past four years.
The visit comes a day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused a member of the Sudanese government and a militia leader of 51 crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, including murder, torture and mass rape.
Khartoum, which has consistently rejected international efforts to send United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur, argues the ICC has no jurisdiction to handle the case.
Iran — together with China, whose President Hu Jintao visited Khartoum earlier this month — is a key ally of Bashir’s regime and spoken out against a UN deployment in Darfur.
”Sudan and Iran feel targeted and must respond by making diplomatic efforts to better explain their positions in regional and international forums,” Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Othman Ismail said this week.
Rights groups and Darfur rebels have urged the ICC to target more senior Sudanese officials, including the defence minister and Bashir himself.
According to the UN, at least 200 000 people have been killed and about 2,5-million displaced since rebels first rose up in Darfur in February 2003 to demand a better share of the country’s resources. — AFP
