PRETORIA: Egypt and South Africa Tuesday expressed their support for a 12-month delay of efforts to indict Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir for war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
We are both making efforts to find a solution and we are trying hard, said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a joint press conference after holding talks with his South African counterpart, Thabo Mbeki.
The case could perhaps be postponed for about 12 months during which something could happen to decrease the tension, he said on his first official visit to South Africa.
The African Union and the Arab League have asked the UN Security Council to delay a decision by the ICC on whether to arrest Beshir.Libya and South Africa on Monday submitted a proposal supporting this to the UN.
Mbeki said Beshir s indictment does not help efforts to move forward the peace process between north and south Sudan, nor in the Darfur region. I want to agree completely with President Mubarak and we will be interacting with President Al-Beshir sometime later this week. He (Beshir) had wanted to send an envoy to come and discuss this matter with us. And indeed, we will do this, Mbeki said.
The Sudanese president was accused by ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, masterminding murder, torture, pillaging and the use of rape to commit genocide.
He urged that an arrest warrant be issued against Beshir for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where a civil war has been raging since 2003.
The United Nations says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed. -AP
