Sudan Regime Orders Numeiri Aides Arrested. : Mubarak Backs New Leaders, Warns Libya Against Meddling

President Hosni Mubarak pledged Egypt’s support for the new Sudanese government Sunday and disclosed that he has already had contacts with its military leadership.

At the same time, he dismissed Libya’s immediate diplomatic recognition of the new regime as a grandstand play designed to make it appear that the regime of Col. Moammar Kadafi had a hand in overthrowing Jaafar Numeiri. Still, he warned Libya not to meddle in Sudanese problems.

“Libya tried to show she is involved in Sudan,” Mubarak said. “We are watching movements of Libya, and we advise the Libyan president not to interfere in the internal affairs of Sudan.”

Unity Bids Rejected

Libya has been bitterly at odds with both Sudan and Egypt since 1972, when Khartoum and Cairo rejected unity bids by Kadafi.

Egypt and Sudan signed a mutual defense pact in 1976, regarding each other’s territory as a buffer against hostile outsiders. Egypt has said that Sudan is the only country to which it would sent troops to defend against attack. Also, both Egypt and Sudan have antagonized the Soviet Union, ousting large numbers of Soviet advisers and technicians in the early 1970s after heavy flirtations with Moscow.

Numeiri, who held power for 16 years, was toppled Saturday by his defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Rahman Suwar Dahab, after a week of anti-government demonstrations that all but paralyzed Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. He learned of the coup when his plane landed at Cairo on a flight home from Washington.

Egyptian authorities found the timing of the coup clearly embarrassing and would have felt more comfortable had Numeiri been overthrown while he was in the United States. However, Mubarak said that the deposed president is welcome to remain in Egypt as long as he likes, and Egyptian sources said the government is prepared to provide him with a villa and a stipend if he stays on.

Numeiri spent his first day as ex-president in isolation at Tahera Palace, a guest house outside Cairo for long-term visiting dignitaries. He made no statements, and it is believed that the government will keep him from talking to the press while it pursues its policy of developing good relations with the new regime.

Cairo is also the exile haven of thousands of Sudanese who fled their homeland as a result of Numeiri’s social and economic policies. Egyptian authorities have traditionally been generous in granting political asylum, and among the many who preceded Numeiri here were King Zog of Albania, who fled his homeland in 1939; ousted King Idris I of Libya, in 1969, and the late Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, in 1981.

Although Egyptian officials are pleased by the initial response of the nine soldiers and three civilians now running Sudan, they are concerned that the regime will stake out new directions in order to disassociate itself from the discredited Numeiri policies.

That could mean distancing itself from Egypt and the United States in order to strike a better balance among Arab radicals and moderates and the superpowers.

“The new regime’s most pressing problems are economic,” a senior Egyptian foreign affairs officer said. “Egypt can’t help, so Sudan has three options for money--Saudi Arabia, Libya or the United States.

“I think what happens will depend on how the regime interprets the last years of the Numeiri rule: Will they hold Egypt responsible for what happened? Or the United States? If we get out of this without damage, I will be surprised.”