Sudan apologises to Rice over manhandling

Sudan's foreign minister yesterday apologised to visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the manhandling of US officials and journalists in Khartoum, a US official said.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail had phoned Ms Rice while she was on a plane to Darfur in western Sudan to say sorry. Ms Rice had earlier demanded an apology.

"He apologised for the treatment of our delegation and the press corps," Mr McCormack told journalists travelling with Ms Rice.

Sudanese security staff manhandled US officials and journalists outside a meeting between Rice and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Ms Rice yesterday told Sudan's President his government had a "credibility problem" on the issue of Darfur and she wanted to see "actions not words". Ms Rice told President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to stop violence, especially against women, in the remote western region of his country.

"I said to the Sudanese government that they had a credibility problem with the international community - I have said: actions not words," Ms Rice said in a round of interviews with journalists at a Darfur refugee camp.

A senior US official travelling with Ms Rice said the secretary of state told Sudanese officials the situation in Darfur was getting in the way of improved relations.

"On Darfur, her message was this is the obstacle to normalisation," the official, who did not want to be named, told journalists travelling with Ms Rice.

The official said Mr Bashir's priority was for the US to lift sanctions on Sudan, which Washington says is a state sponsor of terror. Sudan hosted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

On Wednesday, Ms Rice held out the possibility of sending an ambassador to Sudan for the first time since 1997, in a sign of improving ties after the installation of a new government on July 9 which included former rebels from the country's south.

A peace deal earlier this year ended the southern civil war, which had lasted more than two decades and killed two million people.

Before arriving in Khartoum early yesterday morning, Ms Rice said she would seek to strike a balance between helping consolidate the coalition peace government and holding Sudanese accountable for the violence in Darfur.

Ms Rice said she was particularly concerned women were still being raped in the conflict.

"Welcome, welcome Condoleezza," sang scores of children who greeted Ms Rice when she visited the northern Darfur Abo Shouk camp, home to some 50,000 people.

After talking to women who were victims of abuse, Ms Rice said: "The stories are unbelievable but true... we have got to have a better response (from the Sudanese government)".