Khartoum, Asharq Al-Awsat- Leader of Sudan’s Popular National Congress, Dr. Hassan Turabi, is calling for the overthrow of the Sudanese regime through popular resistance.

Turabi said the Abuja peace agreement, which was signed earlier this week between the Sudan government and one of Darfur’s rebel groups, lacks a legitimate basis.

The regime will not fall “unless the people will replace it – not to the benefit of any regime or party, but to the benefit of all,” A-Turabi told reporters yesterday.

The Islamist ideologist said the agreement on Darfur was achieved only as a result of American pressures, and added that the Sudanese government listens now to America – the “lord of the earth” – and not to “Allah, the lord of the skies.”

Turabi , is a controversial figure in Sudanese politics, who once protected Osama Bin Laden, has spent much of the last five years in detention.

He was once a close colleague of President Omar al-Bashir but he lost out in a power struggle with him in 1999.

He was freed again in June 2005, after being held in connection with an alleged coup plot.

Last month, Turabi was branded an apostate by Sudan’s Muslim scholars for taking a liberal stand on women’s rights in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat.