Sudan, U.S. discuss resumption of military cooperation

KHARTOUM, Aug. 11– A senior U.S. military official started a
series of meetings in Khartoum on Wednesday to resume their military
cooperation and discuss issues of combating terrorism and human trafficking.

Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Engagement, United States Africa
Command (AFRICOM), Alexander Laskaris, held talks with Sudanese Army’s
Joint Chief of Staff Emad Eddin Mustafa Adawi on regional and international
issues. Adawi said that the talks reviewed particularly the situations in
Libya as its stability influences the stability of African countries. He
further announced that the Sudanese army has received an U.S. invitation to
take part, as monitors, in the Bright Star military exercise, which is held
in Egypt with U.S participation.Laskaris, for his part, said the talks
reviewed many issues, top of them the Sudanese-U.S. ties.He noted that the
two sides maintain common understanding and are aware of the importance of
security and stability in Libya, besides counter-terrorism and human
trafficking in Somalia.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour also met Laskaris on
Wednesday. Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Gariballa Al-Khadir told
reporters that the meeting between Ghandour and Laskaris reviewed the
security situation in Sudan and the efforts being made to combat terrorism,
human trafficking and drugs crimes. He said the meeting also discussed the
conditions in Libya, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic and Somalia,
noting that it has been agreed on the importance of coordination and
cooperation to achieve security and stability in those countries.

The foreign minister reiterated that Sudan would press ahead the
constructive dialogue with Washington, aiming at normalizing the bilateral
ties in a manner that serves the two countries’ peoples. The U.S. military
command in Africa (US-AFRICOM) is one of the U.S. Unified Combatant
Commands under the U.S. Department of Defence. It is responsible for the
U.S. military operations in and relations with 53 African countries. It is
headquartered at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. In April this year,
Sudan participated, for the first time, in summit meetings of AFRICOM’s
Chief of Staff in Stuttgart, with a delegation headed by Sudanese Army’s
Joint Chief of Staff. Last March, Sudan government decided to reopen its
military attache’s office in its embassy in the United States after 28
years of closure, few weeks after Washington named a military attache who
actually assumed his tasks in Khartoum.-XINHUA