The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has held talks in Khartoum with Sudan's new coalition government.
After the talks Ms Rice demanded an apology after her officials and US journalists were manhandled by security staff at President Omar al-Beshir’s residence.
‘They had no right to manhandle my staff and the press. It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen,’ Ms Rice told reporters.
The US Secretary of State subsequently received an apology from Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail.
US officials said security men had tried to prevent them and the press from entering the meeting, and also tried to seize tapes from a reporter before Ms Rice’s staff intervened.
Jim Wilkinson, senior adviser to Ms Rice, said he was grabbed and thrown against a wall. US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Connie Newman, as well as Ms Rice’s interpreter Gamal Helal, were initially barred from entering today’s meeting.
Ms Rice is in Sudan as part of a five-day trip and is seeking an explanation from the authorities in Khartoum for the continuing violence in the western region of Darfur.
The new government was sworn in earlier this month after the settlement of a north-south civil war which lasted two decades. However, a separate conflict persists in Darfur.
After today’s talks US officials said Ms Rice was ‘very direct about the scepticism of the international community about Sudan’s ability to improve Darfur’.
