blank

Voice of America ®

Trusted Source of News & Information since 1942

About VOA | Contact VOA News

  • Saturday, 21 November 2009
  • Latest News:

News RSS Feeds RSS Feed

Turkey Says Bashir to Skip OIC Summit

Share This

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir (file photo)
AFP Photo
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir (file photo)

Turkish officials say Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not attend a summit of Islamic leaders in Istanbul Monday.

Turkey said last week that Mr. Bashir would be present for the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, despite the international warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges.

However, Turkish government officials now say they have learned President Bashir will not be coming.

The European Union had raised objections to the Sudanese president attending the summit. 

The International Criminal Court has indicted President Bashir on charges of masterminding a campaign of rape, murder, and other crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.

Mr. Bashir has repeatedly defied the ICC by traveling abroad but only to countries that are not parties to the ICC and can guarantee his safety.

On Sunday, he was in Egypt for the start of the China-Africa summit.

Two weeks ago, he stayed away from an African Union summit in Nigeria, after human rights groups demanded that authorities there arrest him if he came.


Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.