Sudanese Ambassador to resume job in Cairo soon: Shorouk

CAIRO - 19 January 2018: Sudanese Ambassador to Egypt Abdel Mahmoud Abdel Halim will return back to Cairo to resume his job soon, according to the privately-owned Shorouk newspaper on Friday.

The sources of the newspaper added that Abdel Mahmoud will head special committees concerned in activating bilateral agreements between Cairo and Khartoum and resolving disputed issues between the two countries upon directives from President Omar al-Bashir who had ordered to stop hostile media campaigns against Cairo as an attempt from the Sudanese side to restore confidence.

“The Sudanese escalation against Egypt has been diplomatically contained from the Egyptian side which did not take a similar procedure at the official level,” the Sudanese sources revealed to Shorouk.

The sources added that Egypt seeks stable relations with Sudan, giving respect to historical and geographical ties between Cairo and Khartoum, stressing, “Egypt has run the ongoing crisis with Sudan brotherly so enemies will not take advantage of such situation.”

On January 4, Abdel-Halim was withdrawn for consultation, according to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, which replied that Cairo was evaluating the situation in order to act accordingly.

Sudan claims that it has sovereignty over Halaib and Shalateen triangle, which is located inside Egyptian territories. Halaib and Shalateen, or the Halaib Triangle, is an area of land measuring 20,580 square kilometers, located on the Egyptian-Sudanese border on the Red Sea coast. It is part of the Red Sea governorate and consists of three major towns.

The area belongs to Egypt politically and administratively, but has been one of the major sticking points in Egyptian-Sudanese relations since the demarcation of borders between the two countries carried out during the British occupation of Egypt in 1899, at a time when Sudan was part of the Egyptian Kingdom.

Recently, the bilateral relation aggravated due the controversial Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Sudanese media claimed that Egypt has sought to exclude Sudan from the tripartite talks with Ethiopia. On January 8, Foreign Minister Shoukry stressed that Egypt did not ask Ethiopia to exclude Sudan from negotiations.

Egypt has voiced its concern over Ethiopia’s dam construction, as it would affect Egypt’s 55 billion cubic meter share of the Nile water. However, Addis Ababa says the dam is necessary for its development and would not negatively affect the downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan).