By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
US Senator John Kerry, the Senate Foreign Relations chairman, will visit Sudan for meetings with senior officials, the official state news agency reported Sunday.
During the three-day visit, which starts April 15, Kerry will meet senior Sudanese officials and visit Darfur, SUNA said.
Kerry will meet with Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and other officials, SUNA quoted Nasser Eddin Wali, the head of the Foreign Ministry's Two Americas Department, as saying. It did not say if Kerry would meet with embattled President Omar al-Bashir.
Kerry will be the second senior American official to visit Sudan since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on March 4 for allegedly orchestrating atrocities against Darfur's ethnic African tribes. The special envoy to Sudan, J. Scott Gration, visited in early April.
"This is a historical and important visit by a high level official from the new US administration and comes immediately after the visit of the presidential special envoy Scott Gration," Wali told SUNA.