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East African Leaders Condemn Terrorism At IGAD Summit
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discussed terrorism with Sundanese President |
KHARTOUM, Jan. 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Ministers from seven East African nations meeting in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, have approved Thursday a joint initiative to fight terrorism.
The regional summit, aimed at resolving conflicts in Sudan and Somalia and addressing terrorism, is under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Ministers from Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti condemned all forms of terrorism and agreed to co-operate closely in the fight against it, BBC’s online news service reported.
Drafted by Sudan, which is still on the American list of state sponsors of so-called terrorism, the proposal will now be put forward for a summit of all the seven heads of state, who are due to meet later Thursday.
Sudan's Foreign Minister, Mustafa Ismail, said the proposal, to be submitted to the full summit Thursday, calls for holding an international conference for the "identification of terrorism" and for fighting it "within international legitimacy", Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Ismail said the council also heard reports on three different proposals -- one backed by IGAD, a second by Egypt and Libya, and a third by the United States -- towards ending Sudan's 18-year old civil war.
Libyan African Unity Minister, Ali Abdel Salam Triki, who will attend the summit along with Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Maher, said his country and Egypt would "not object to cooperation" with IGAD on their Sudan peace initiatives.
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mussa, who also arrived in Khartoum Wednesday, expressed the hope that his participation in the IGAD summit would be a start for cooperation between the two bodies.
He told journalists that he would hold talks with Sudan’s President, Omar al-Beshir, and other Sudanese officials in addition to meetings with other African participants in the summit.
"The meetings will focus on Arab and African coordination, and between the Arab League and IGAD, in particular," Mussa said.
Another issue discussed in the meeting was the definition of terrorism.
According to the BBC, this could be quite difficult to resolve, since some IGAD countries have in the past given financial and military support to opposition groups from other member states. Only a few days ago, Somalia accused Ethiopian troops of crossing its border again, which according to the authorities in Mogadishu, is a clear case of terrorism.
However, it is likely that the leaders will all sign the proposal, which calls for IGAD ministers of justice and heads of security to meet within the next two months to draw up more detailed plans.
Responding to criticism that the scheme was merely empty rhetoric aimed at currying favor with the West, the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Mustafa Ismail, said that it was actually a historic step for the seven IGAD states, since they had never sat down together to discuss how to rid the region of terrorism.
IGAD was originally set up to deal with drought in East Africa, and the seven leaders will be looking at development issues, as well as continuing attempts to end the Sudanese civil war.
The key concern this year is Washington's war on Afghanistan and how it might affect them.
The decision to co-operate more closely comes in the wake of the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is intended to prevent members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda group and any other similar organizations from finding sanctuary in the region. One major concern in the region is who will be the next U.S. target.
It is only four years since American cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, which they claimed was involved with the making of chemical weapons, a claim that later was shown to be wrong. U.S. officials have also accused Sudanese diplomats to an attempt to blow up the American embassy in New Delhi June 2001.
But Sudan has recently been thanked by the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, for handing over hundreds of intelligence files on Al-Qaeda.
Somalia - represented at IGAD by its transitional government - is also expected to be the U.S.’s next target. It is being watched by coalition ships and aircraft for signs that Al-Qaeda is making Somalia their new base.
Ethiopia says the new government there is linked to Al Ittihad Al Islamiya group whose assets were frozen by U.S. President, George W. Bush, after the September 11 attacks.
Somalia looks an increasingly likely candidate for the much-discussed next phase of the war, but the other conference members have reasons to be wary, as Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia have all been accused of having Al-Qaeda cells by Washington.
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