{{Sudan has threatened to end ties with the United States as it robustly responded to American criticism of President Omar al-Bashir’s application for a visa to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly.}}
Khartoum also said it would expel Washington’s envoy if the US continued its “hostile policy” against it, and also end the flow of South Sudanese oil through its territory.
The US State Department on Monday advised President Bashir not to seek to travel to its territory and instead first answer to International Criminal Court charges. It did not however explicitly said that it would not grant him a visa. (Read: Washington asks Bashir not to travel to the US)
Mr Bashir is indicted by the ICC for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide over the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, with two warrants out for him.
Sudan and the US are both not members of the ICC, while Mr Bashir has so far refused to co-operate with the court.
The Sudanese Foreign Affairs ministry on Tuesday strongly condemned the US position, describing it as contempt for African leaders.
“According to international law, the headquarters country, the United States, has no legal right for objection to the participation of any official from any full member state in the UN at activities of the United Nations,” ministry spokesman Abubakr Alsidiq said in an official statement.
“[The] United States is not morally, politically and legally qualified to provide sermons and advices on respect to the International Humanitarian Law and the human rights under its own known record of war crimes and extermination against whole peoples, the last of which was the invasion of Iraq in the year 2003 and the killing of more than one million Iraqi persons after deceiving the world with false lies,” Mr Alsidiq added.
“We expressed Sudan adherence to its full right to participate at the highest level in the meetings of the 68th session of the UN General Assembly,” he stressed.
The UN is considered extra-national territory.
NMG
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