Sharm el-Sheikh–Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met on Tuesday with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak on his first trip abroad since his re-election was declared on Monday.
President Mubarak, “congratulated the Sudanese president on his winning a new presidential term in the elections,” state news agency MENA reported.
Bashir’s victory by 68 percent margin was announced by Sudan’s election commission on Monday, following five days of polling earlier this month.
Mubarak hosted Bashir in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the 81-year-old president is convalescing after surgery in Germany last month.
Mubarak said he was keen to achieve stability in his country’s southern neighbor, where the semi-autonomous south is due to vote in an independence referendum next year, the agency said.
The two also discussed developments in the war-torn western Darfur region, where the United Nations says 300,000 people have died since ethnic rebels took up arms against the government in 2003. Khartoum puts the toll at 10,000.
The Sudanese government has been in Qatari-hosted peace talks with the most active rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement. The negotiations were suspended for the elections, but are due to resume next month.
After the International Criminal Court issued a warrant in March 2009 for Bashir’s arrest for alleged war crimes in Darfur, Mubarak expressed support for the Sudanese president.
Egypt was the second country Bashir visited after the warrant was issued.
