Sudanese president fires foreign minister after pay remark

CAIRO – Sudan's official news agency says President Omar al-Bashir has fired his foreign minister a day after he spoke in parliament and complained how diplomats have received no salaries for the past seven months.

SUNA reported late on Thursday that al-Bashir sacked Ibrahim Ghandour who had just returned from Saudi Arabia where he attended the Arab Summit. It gave no further details.

Ghandour on Wednesday said in parliament that the government has no money to pay diplomats' salaries, ruled out "going to war" as an option to settle border disputes with neighbors — likely a reference to the Nile waters crisis — and claimed unnamed parties were impeding the work of his ministry.

Al-Bashir, in power since 1989, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide in Darfur.