Sisi slams al-Bashir’s allegations of backing Darfur rebels

CAIRO – 24 May 2017: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi denied on Wednesday his Sudanese counterpart’s allegations of an Egyptian conspiracy against Sudan, saying Egypt “never conspires against Sudan or any other state.”

“Egypt has a fixed policy; not to interfere in domestic affairs of any country. Egypt does not conspire, it just collaborates to build, but never takes such despicable actions, especially [when it comes to] our brothers in Sudan. I hope the whole world understands this message,” Sisi said during a press conference alongside Chancellor of Austria Christian Kern at Ittihadiya Palace in Cairo.

“We follow an honest policy at a time where honesty is rare. We are a rational state that respect itself, respects others and respects its commitments. We are not followers to anyone, we solve our problems by dialogue, not by conspiracy, not on my watch,” Sisi said assertively, adding that those accusations contradict the anti-terrorism stance Egypt expressed during the recent Islamic-American summit in Riyadh on Sunday.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir accused Egypt of providing Darfur rebels with arms in their battle against Khartoum, and selling his government deficient weapons.

“Two days ago, our troops seized Egyptian armored vehicles with the rebels in East and North Darfur,” al-Bashri said in event to honor war veterans in Khartoum on Tuesday.

“Throughout 17-year war, Egypt did not support us with one bullet, even the ammunition was deficient, although we fought along with them in 1973,” al-Bashir added, referring to Egypt’s war against Israel.

On social media, the clash was ignited between Sudanese and Egyptian users after photos of the alleged Egyptian armored vehicles circulated on Facebook pages affiliated with the Sudanese army.

Since 2003, three Darfur-based rebellion movements have been fighting Bashir’s government. They rejected a Qatari-sponsored peace document to end the war in July 2011.