Improving Sudanese-Egyptian relations face their first test
Sudan-Egypt, Politics, 4/28/1998

Ambassador Fouad Yousif who concluded last Sunday a 10 days official visit to Khartoum heading a large Egyptian delegation, which according to Egyptian officials was supposed to have tackled with their Sudanese counterparts technical procedures for handing over back to Egypt properties confiscated earlier by Sudanese government, headed back to Cairo empty handed.

The delegation was to have received back University of Cairo (Khartoum extension) and a considerable number of preliminary, middle and high schools scattered all over Sudanese cities, which were owned and run by the Egyptian ministry of Education before being confiscated by General Bashir's government in 1995, along with some guest houses and other buildings that belong to Egypt's ministry of Irrigation.

Sources close to the delegation described the 10 day mission as a complete failure and expressed their disappointment at what they called a negative attitude on the part of Sudanese side who unexpectedly showed reluctance to answer Egyptian demands to hand over back to Egypt the aforesaid assets.

Instead, Egyptian sources said, Sudanese officials offered a piecemeal deal according to which some properties could to be returned within specified periods of time ranging from one to six years, a deal which was entirely rejected by Egyptian officials who insist on forthwith unconditional restoration of Egypt's properties.

The London Al-Hayat daily yesterday quoted an Egyptian official as saying that a schedueled trip to Khartoum by the Egyptian minister of education Dr. Mufeed Shihab was cancelled and a long expected visit to Cairo by Sudanese president Major-General Omer al-Bashir has been postponed. The new developments are apparently linked to the deadlocked property negotiations between the two countries.

It is worth mentioning that the Sudanese minister of foreign affairs Mustafa Osman Ismail has constantly maintained full confidence that the issue of the Egyptian properties in Sudan will not become a stumbling block in the way of the rapidly improving relations between the two countries and expressed in a series of statements over the last few weeks that the problem will ultimately be resolved to a mutual satisfaction. Also, the Speaker of the Sudanese National Assembly (parliament) Hassan al-Turabi was quoted by the official Sudan News Agency ( SUNA ) to have hailed in his address to a mass rally at Kadabas, south of Khartoum, last Sunday the remarkable improvements in Sudan's foreign relations specially with Egypt.

However, the Sudanese government remained silent untill today as the AFP reported that Sudan annouced that it had reached partial agreement with Egypt on the return of the confiscated property adding that the two countries agreed that property should be returned, but the Sudanese Foreign Ministry undersecretary Hassan Abdin told the daily Al-Usbu, according to AFP, that no agreement had been reached on a date for returning the Khartoum branch of Cairo University and that Sudan proposed a five-year handover period for the university while giving a shorter time frame for other properties with some items to be returned "immediately."

Previous Stories:
  Sudden delay in Sudanese peace talks with Garang   (4/27/1998)
  Sudan: Unprecedented TV political debate   (4/23/1998)
  Egyptian - Sudanese talks   (4/22/1998)

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