ANCA WELCOMES DARFUR MOVEMENT’S CALL ON PRESIDENT OBAMA TO OPPOSE AL-BASHIR’S VISIT TO TURKEY

armradio.am
06.11.2009 17:17

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) voiced the Armenian
American community’s strong support for a human rights statement,
issued 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.