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Bush starts five-nation Africa trip in Benin

US President George W. Bush arrived in Benin on Saturday to start a five-nation tour of Africa to highlight US support for the continent.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 12:07 February 16, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • US President George W. Bush with Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi in Cotonou, Benin, yesterday.
  • Image Credit: Reuters

Cotonou, Benin: US President George W. Bush began a visit to Africa on Saturday with a call for a power sharing agreement in Kenya to end the post-election conflict there that has killed 1,000 people.

Bush, whose five-nation trip does not include Kenya, is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Nairobi on Monday to back mediation efforts between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his opponents by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan.

"Kenya's an issue, that's why I'm sending Secretary Rice there to help with the Kofi Annan initiative," Bush told reporters after arriving in Benin on the first stop of his six-day tour, his second to the world's poorest continent.

Rice's mission was "all aimed at having a clear message that there be no violence and that there ought to be a power sharing agreement," Bush said after holding talks with Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi in a brief stopover at Cotonou airport.

He later left for Tanzania, the next stop on a tour that will also take him to Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.

Speaking in Cotonou, Bush reiterated US backing for the African Union/United Nations peacekeeping force being deployed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where political and ethnic conflict since 2003 has killed around 200,000 people.

"No question, Sudan is a real difficult situation which we have labelled a genocide," Bush said.

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