THE US: It is one thing to harbour international terrorists and turn armed militias on your own people. It is quite another to mess with the American press corps.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice yesterday demanded and received an apology from the Sudanese government after reporters were manhandled during her visit to Khartoum.
Scuffles erupted when Sudanese security officials attempted to bar US officials and journalists from attending her meeting with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, ironically part of a drive to ease frosty relations between the two countries and resolve the conflict in Darfur.
"They had no right to manhandle my staff and the press," Dr Rice told reporters after the incident. "It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen."
At first no journalists were allowed into the meeting at the presidential palace. Several said doors had been slammed in their faces.
A handful of Dr Rice's most senior aides were also shut out - including her interpreter and the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Connie Newman.
Jim Wilkinson, senior adviser to Dr Rice, said he was grabbed and thrown against a wall at the Bashir residence.
The Sudanese security eventually relented and the journalists and officials were allowed into the meeting.
However, when NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell tried to ask why Khartoum should be believed in its promises to crack down on militias in Darfur, she was cut off and pushed away by the Sudanese security.
Another reporter had a tape recorder snatched.
The scuffle may take the gloss off encouraging comments made by US officials in the run-up to the talks.
Dr Rice had mooted the return of a US ambassador to the country and suggested that Sudan's new vice president, John Garang, drawn from the ranks of southern rebels, might present a fresh chance for peace in the western region of Darfur.
He was appointed earlier this month with the conclusion of civil war in the south, while the conflict in the west continues.
The comments follow a decade of diplomatic tension and outright hostility.
Khartoum sheltered Osama bin Laden from 1991 to 1996, and the Sudanese regime's links with terrorism prompted a US missile strike in 1998.
Yesterday's meeting was dominated by Darfur, where government-backed Janjaweed militia are blamed for forcing two million from their homes.
President Bashir insisted peace talks were bearing fruit. "We do not want to go to back to war in any part of the country," he said.
Dr Rice left the meeting and headed straight for a tour of refugee camps in Darfur.
After landing in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, spokesman Seán McKormack said Dr Rice received a personal phone call from foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail "apologising for the treatment of our delegation and the press corps accompanying the secretary".
Touring the area, Ms Rice said the US would hold the Sudanese government to account if it failed to end the crisis.