SUDAN-BASHIR/INAUGURATION Sudan's Bashir says wants dialogue with West as new term starts

Record ID: 149912

  • Title: SUDAN-BASHIR/INAUGURATION Sudan's Bashir says wants dialogue with West as new term starts
  • Date: 2nd June 2015
  • Summary: KHARTOUM, SUDAN (JUNE 2, 2015)(REUTERS) DELEGATES SEATED IN PARLIAMENT SUDANESE PRESIDENT OMAR HASSAN AL-BASHIR ENTERING NATIONAL ASSEMBLY HALL, MPS AND GUESTS APPLAUDING
  • Embargoed: 17th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACS4XXTZ5KVQ9L6THD7GCQF5WC
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Sudan is open to dialogue with Western nations, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Tuesday (June 2), in an unusually conciliatory message from a leader who is wanted on genocide charges and whose country has suffered from years of economic sanctions.
    Speaking at the start of a new presidential term that extends his quarter century in power, Bashir, 71, also appealed for national unity as he grapples with rebellions and dwindling oil revenues following South Sudan's 2011 secession.
    He urged opposition parties to join a "national dialogue" he said would begin in the coming days.
    "The comprehensive national dialogue which we called for last year - everyone is now ready to start. We have set out the mechanisms and it will begin in the next few days. I take this opportunity to address the opposition parties who are still reluctant or are rejecting the dialogue along with the opposition movements which have chosen the path of violence instead of dialogue, and I say to all of them that the nations is still open to receive them and our doors are wide open," he told parliament after a swearing-in ceremony attended by regional African and Arab leaders.
    Sudan has faced a rebellion in its Darfur region since 2003 and a separate but linked insurgency in Blue Nile and South Kordofan since the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
    In his inauguration speech, he renewed a general amnesty for armed groups.
    "We renew our pledge here in front of you to completely pardon all the armed groups that return honestly and participate in the dialogue," he said.
    Opposition figures have said the continued rule of Bashir has exacerbated Sudan's isolation from global financial and political institutions.
    He won 94 percent of the vote in a national election in April, the first since Sudan saw its south secede in 2011, but it was boycotted by most of the opposition.
    His ruling National Congress Party won 323 of 426 parliamentary seats.
    But Bashir he would not discriminate against those who did not vote for him.
    "I will be president to everyone, with no distinction between those who voted and those who didn't, no distinction between those who voted and those who didn't vote or between those who took part and those who boycotted the elections," he said.
    Sudan has long labored under a raft of U.N. and bilateral sanctions, including from the United States.
    Bashir also faces charges at the International Criminal Court that he masterminded genocide and other atrocities in his campaign to crush a revolt in the Darfur region. He has denied all the charges.
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