{{The United States was stuck on the horns of a dilemma Thursday, mulling whether to grant a visa to indicted war crimes suspect Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir amid growing pressure to bar him from a UN summit.}}<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a variety of considerations in play with respect to President Bashir\u2019s visa request, including the outstanding warrant for his arrest,\u201d State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.<\/p>\n
But she refused to discuss all the considerations publicly, with Mr Bashir sought by the International Criminal Court to face charges of genocide in the war-torn Darfur region.<\/p>\n
Mr Bashir\u2019s request for a visa to travel to New York for next week\u2019s UN General Assembly has embarrassed the US government and the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Washington opposes Mr Bashir attending the annual meeting, but it has refused to say whether it can or will block the Sudanese leader.<\/p>\n
Under its obligations as the host nation of the United Nations, Washington is generally obliged to grant visas for heads of state wishing to visit the US on UN business.<\/p>\n
But the International Criminal Court on Wednesday urged US authorities to arrest Mr Bashir should he land in New York.<\/p>\n
The court has asked \u201cthe competent US authorities to arrest Omar al-Bashir and surrender him to the court, in the event he enters their territory,\u201d the ICC said.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Mr Bashir\u2019s case, Harf said \u201cwe clearly strongly supported the ICC\u2019s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the kind of war crimes he\u2019s been accused of.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she refused to specify whether Washington would grant him the visa or not.<\/p>\n
Activists, including Hollywood stars George Clooney, Mia Farrow and Don Cheadle, have meanwhile urged President Barack Obama to \u201cdo everything possible\u201d to dissuade president Bashir from making the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur immigration laws prohibit admitting perpetrators of genocide and extrajudicial killings into our country and it is unprecedented for someone wanted by the International Criminal Court for the crime of genocide to travel to the United States,\u201d some 25 activists said in a letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The United States was stuck on the horns of a dilemma Thursday, mulling whether to grant a visa to indicted war crimes suspect Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir amid growing pressure to bar him from a UN summit.}} \u201cThere are a variety of considerations in play with respect to President Bashir\u2019s visa request, including the outstanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048410,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10547.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10547"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10547"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}