Visiting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is scheduled to meet with Sudanese opposition leader Mohamed Othman al-Merghani in Cairo to probe Sudanese national reconciliation, the Egyptian MENA news agency reported.

The talks between al-Bashir and al-Merghani, leader of the Sudanese National Democratic Alliance (NDA), who has been living outside Sudan for the past 17 years, is expected to call for a historic national reconciliation conference as part of efforts to bring together leaders of Sudanese political parties and groups, the NDA Spokesman Hatem al-Ser Ali was quoted as saying.
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Al-Merghani will try to convince Bashir to approve holding of this conference, which will group Sudan's Umma Party leader al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Communist Party leader Mohamed Ibrahim Nuqqud, Popular Congress Party (PCP) leader Hassan al-Turabi, al-Merghani, NDA leader and Bashir as National Congress Party leader as well as Salva Kiir, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Al-Bashir, who arrived here on Monday on an official visit to Egypt, hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on ways of supporting stability in Sudan and efforts to solve the problem in Darfur region.

Meanwhile, a tripartite summit of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Chadian President Idriss Deby was held later Tuesday in Libya capital of Tripoli to discuss issues over Sudan's Darfur and the relations between Sudan and Chad.

Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awad said that Chad and Sudan would intensify their coordination to get rebels in Darfur to join the Abuja peace agreement to help resume peace in the war-torn western Sudanese region.

Chad and Sudan have long traded accusations of backing each other's rebel groups and witnessed a border clash along the western Sudanese region of Darfur last month.

On April 9, Sudan announced that its army thwarted a cross-border assault by Chadian troops in Darfur and repulsed the attackers.

Initially denying its troops crossed into Sudan, the Chadian government apologized on April 14 for the border clash erupted inside Sudan, which killed 17 Sudanese soldiers and wounded 40 others.

At a meeting brokered by Saudi Arabia on May 3, Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir and his Chadian counterpart Idriss Deby signed a reconciliation deal, which stipulates respects for each other's territorial integrity, not to support opposition forces in the other country.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2007)