20101219
Sudan Tribune

Nairobi — Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and the Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qaddafi will both arrive in Khartoum on Tuesday for talks with Sudan president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir as his country hurtles towards a vote in January 2011 on the independence of south Sudan region.

Sudan's official News Agency SUNA reported on Sunday that the two dignitaries would hold talks with Al-Bashir in order to discuss the overall situation in Sudan as well as issues of common interests.

The high-profile visit comes as the semi-autonomous region of South Sudan prepares to seize a historic opportunity to gain full independence from the north when its citizens go to the polls on January 9, 2011.

The highly sensitive plebiscite is a key plank of a 2005's peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north Sudan and the south where most people follow Christianity or traditional beliefs.

Al-Qaddafi and Mubarak's visit also follows news reported on Sunday that U.S President Barack Obama had recently sent letters to a number of regional leaders underscoring his administration's increasing focus on Sudan's referendum and the situation in Darfur region.

Darfur region in western Sudan has been the scene of an armed conflict since 2003 when rebels belonging mostly to African ethnicities took up arms against the central government in Khartoum, accusing it of marginalizing the region in terms of development and wealth-sharing.

The rebellion promoted Khartoum to launch a counterinsurgency campaign whose end result was the death of 300,000 people and displacements of 2 million, according to UN figures.

Mike Hammer, the White House National Security Council spokesman, said that Obama's letters had made it clear that "Sudan is one of the [US] administration's top priorities."

According to Hammer, the letters were part of "an ongoing diplomatic push to emphasize the importance that Washington places on a peaceful Sudan," as quoted by Reuters.

Libya's leader Al-Qaddafi received one of Obama's letters, as reported by the country's national T.V on Saturday.

In another vein, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdul Aziz arrived in Sudan on Sunday for a three-day official visit. He was received at Khartoum airport by Al-Bashir, according to the Mauritanian news agency.