ANCA: US ADMINISTRATION HAS TO PROTEST AGAINST SUDAN PRESIDENT’S UPCOMING VISIT TO TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
06.11.2009 18:41 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
voiced the Armenian American community’s strong support for a human
rights statement, issued earlier today by a coalition of anti-Darfur
Genocide groups, calling upon the Obama-Biden Administration to
protest the upcoming state visit to Turkey of Sudan’s President,
indicted war-criminal Omar al-Bashir. The four organizations
joining together in making this declaration, the Center for American
Progress, Enough!, Save Darfur, and Genocide Intervention Network,
referencing al-Bashir’s upcoming visits to Ankara and Cairo, stressed
the importance of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton
engaging in personal diplomacy at the highest level to ensure that a
wanted war criminal does not continue to travel with impunity to the
capitals of key U.S. allies. The failure to do so, they noted, would
"send a powerful message that the Administration isn’t serious about
implementing the Sudan strategy it just announced."

"We want to thank each of these organizations for their work in
demanding clear and determined American leadership in ending the
Darfur Genocide," said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.

"There is today, sadly, no more striking example of how the brutal
cycle of genocide and denial feeds upon itself than the growing
diplomatic and military relationship between Turkey and Sudan."

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is scheduled to visit Turkey next
week to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC.) Turkish officials announced yesterday that they would not
act on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued
against al-Bashir for war crimes.

The Ankara and Khartoum regimes have grown markedly closer over the
past two years, with Turkey continuing to supply lethal weaponry to
Sudan and increased trade between two the countries.