The Organisation of the Islamic Conference met on Monday in Istanbul to discuss trade and poverty. The conference was not attended by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir who, in March 2009, was the recipient of the first arrest warrant for a sitting Head of State that the ICC has yet issued. Both NGOs and the EU have been pressuring Turkey to arrest Al-Bashir on Turkish soil and send him to stand trial in The Hague. He has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his suspected role in the Darfur genocide. Human Rights Watch claimed that although Turkish officials were reluctant to arrest Al-Bashir, Turkey’s application to the EU and its membership of the UN Security Council (which originally referred the Darfur genocide to the ICC) obliged Turkey to take action.

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has reportedly questioned the charges against Al-Bashir, saying that “no Muslim could perpetrate a genocide”. Al-Bashir came to power in a bloodless coup in 1989 which was launched “to save the country from rotten political parties”. His Foreign Minister, Ali Karti, said that “the ongoing consultations between the Sudanese government partners, the National Congress Party, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, need the president to be present in the country, and therefore, the president decided not to go to Turkey”.

According to United Nations evidence, 300 000 people have died and almost three million have been forced to flee their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur first rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum in February 2003.