Lavrov to visit Sudan for talks on Mideast, North Africa situation

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is departing for the Republic of Sudan on a working visit to meet President Omar al-Bashir and hold talks with Foreign Minister Ahmed Karti, TASS reported.

The Russian foreign minister will visit Sudan for the first time after the separation of the country’s southern regions in 2011. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the visit would be held at the crucial moment for the Republic of Sudan: it “aims to confirm our determination to assist the inter-Sudanese settlement process completion based on the known international legal framework and settlement of the task of stable normalisation in Darfur based on the Peace Treaty signed in Doha in May 2011.”

At the negotiations that will be held in Khartoum on December 3 the sides will discuss important regional and international problems with emphasis on the developments in the Middle East region and in North Africa and will also discuss issues of further boosting bilateral interaction in the political, trade-economic and other spheres.

During the Sudan visit Lavrov will also attend the second session of the Russian-Arab Co-operation Forum at the ministerial level.