January 8, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir has urged the embattled Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad to embrace “reforms” proposed by Khartoum.

FILE - Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meets with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)

Al-Bashir made his statement during a joint press conference on Sunday with the chairman of the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya, where the Sudanese president was visiting for the first time since the fall of the regime of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The Sudanese leader, who concluded his trip to Libya and returned to Khartoum on Sunday’s evening, said that despite the “cordial relations” between Damascus and Khartoum, the latter did not hesitate to express its opinion on the necessity of introducing reforms to Syria.

Sudan at first was opposed to any punitive actions against Syria, where 5000 people died as a result of ongoing government ongoing crackdown on protestors demanding ouster of Al-Assad.

Khartoum originally said that an international conspiracy was being hatched against Syrian but later had a change of heart and joined a chorus of Arab countries denouncing Damascus’ brutality towards protestors.

The Sudanese government last November voiced in favor of an Arab League’s resolution suspending Syria’s membership of the Pan-Arab body, drawing a strong rebuke from Damascus who slammed what it saw as Khartoum’s ungratefulness to previous support it received from Syria.

In the press conference, Al-Bashir said that his government had proposed to Damascus a number of reforms enshrined in Sudan’s constitution and its political parties’ laws.

“Our position chimes with that of the Arab League and all the positions Sudan has taken are within the framework of the Arab League,” Al-Bashir said.

The Sudanese leader referred to the fact that the Arab League’s observer mission, which Syria reluctantly accepted, is led by a Sudanese national, General Mohamed Hassan Al-Dabi.

Al-Dabi’s appointment as head of the mission faced a barrage of criticism from right groups which cited his alleged involvement in atrocities committed by the Sudanese government in the country’s western region of Darfur.

“We are present in Syria through the observers’ mission to report on the reality of the situation, and we are definitely on the side of Syrian people and we want security and stability for Syria because it is a very important country in the confrontation line,” Al-Bashir declared.

He later added that stability in Syria cannot be achieved unless through a government connected with the public.

The Sudanese leader has repeatedly voiced confidence that his country is immune to the contagion of popular uprisings that swept across the Middle East in 2011 and toppled long-serving autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

But Al-Bashir’s government continues to suppress dissent at home, and has clamped down on a number of small protests that erupted as a result of worsening economic conditions.

(ST)