KHARTOUM, Feb 11, 2011 (AFP) - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Friday congratulated the Egyptian people on realising their wishes and offered them unqualified support, after president Hosni Mubarak was ousted on the 18th day of anti-regime protests.
"The presidency of the republic congratulates the brotherly people of Egypt on realising their wishes, and on the triumph of their revolution," said a statement carried by the official SUNA news agency.
"The presidency affirms its unqualified support and stands firmly by the Egyptian people in realising their aspirations and enhancing Egypt's position and recovering its role as a pioneering Arab, African and Islamic country," the statement added.
Earlier, in Khartoum's first official reaction to the tumultuous events in Egypt, the foreign ministry said it welcomed the "legitimate aspirations" of the Egyptian people.
"Sudan welcomes and respects the choice and the will of the Egyptian people to achieve their legitimate aspirations of dignity and freedom, stability and peace," the ministry said in a statement.
The Khartoum government, which has suppressed sporadic demonstrations in north Sudan in recent weeks, has kept tight-lipped about the mass nationwide protests convulsing its northern neighbour, a key ally with whom it has historic links.
Senior Sudanese officials have said they do not fear popular uprisings of the kind witnessed in Egypt and Tunisia, and described the localised but vocal demonstrations that broke out in Khartoum and other northern cities late last month as illegal.
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, vowed in January that he would never run away from his country, saying he would leave power "the day we know the Sudanese people want us to."
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Copyright AFP 2011.
