Washington — Academy Award–winning actor George Clooney just left the Oval Office, where he had a sit-down chat with President Obama about Sudan. Clooney, who recently traveled to southern Sudan, tells reporters that he urged the president to start “robust diplomacy” in the war-torn African nation. “This is not a right or left issue,” he says. “We have the opportunity to negotiate a peace treaty.”
Clooney hopes to call attention to the increasingly unstable relationships between the northern and southern regions.
Sudan President Omar Al Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in the country’s Darfur region, is expected to fight to keep South Sudan from seceding because it has more than 75 percent of the country’s oil.
Later today, Clooney says that he plans to have a similar conversation with Sen. Dick Lugar (R., Ind.).