Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman receives Sudanese President Omar Bashir at the Riyadh airport on Wednesday. (SPA)

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman held wide-ranging talks with Sudanese President Omar Bashir to assess the progress of bilateral relations and to take stock of the crisis situations in the region, especially the conflict in Yemen.

The talks also focused on ways and means to remove obstacles that are hampering plans for closer commercial interaction between Riyadh and Khartoum.

“President Bashir, in his talks with King Salman, lent strong support to the Kingdom’s efforts to ensure peace and security in the Arab and Islamic world,” said Abdel Hafiz Ibrahim, Sudanese ambassador, while speaking to Arab News.

Bashir, who pledged his support to Riyadh to resolve conflicts in Yemen and Libya, also briefed the king about “the situation in Sudan.”

Bashir also met Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Ibrahim said that the two leaders discussed how to tackle “the crisis in Yemen, Libya and elsewhere in the region.”

Bashir appreciated the efforts of Saudi government, which has been pushing for an alliance of states on regional and international levels, to counter emerging threats from Iran, IS and other terror outfits.

Sudan also strongly condemned Wednesday the statements made by Swedish foreign minister about Saudi Arabia recently.

The Swedish statements included abuse of the judiciary in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ali Sadiq, a spokesman of the Sudanese foreign ministry, said that “his country expressed total rejection and strong condemnation of the offensive remarks against the Kingdom’s judiciary… and Sudan considered the remarks a blatant interference in the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia.”

King Salman and Bashir also discussed in general the economic relations keeping in view the ongoing influx of foreign investors to Africa’s largest country, stressing that Khartoum welcomes Saudi investors, as stability prevails in that country.

To this end, Ambassador Ibrahim noted that a Saudi-Sudanese ministerial panel is scheduled to meet in the first week of May in the Sudanese capital to discuss commercial relations especially in agriculture sector. The two countries, he said, had finalized some draft agreements including an avoidance of double taxation treaty to be signed during the ministerial meeting.

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