Eastern Sudan peace talks begins Tuesday in Triploi

Feb 5, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan announced that talks with eastern rebels will start next Tuesday in Tripoli, under the auspice of the Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.

Head of the governmental delegation for talks with the eastern Sudan rebels, Kamal Obeid, has stressed the readiness of the national unity government for the coming session of negotiations.

Obeid said that the government delegation for the coming session of negotiation in Tripoli is fully authorized, affirming the government keenness to achieve solution for east Sudan crisis.

Instead of beginning in January, after earlier delays from November and December, the talks are now set to start next Tuesday 7 February at Libya’s request.

Like their better-known rebel counterparts in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, the Eastern Front complains of marginalization by the Khartoum government, which it accuses of exploiting natural resources such as oil, natural gas, gold and other minerals at the expense of the local population.

The Eastern Front was founded by eastern Sudan’s two main rebel groups, the Beja Congress and the Free Lions, early last year and claimed to have launched its first combined offensive against Sudanese government positions in the Red Sea state in June 2005.

An influential policy group warned this month that simmering tensions in east Sudan were a “powderkeg” that could explode into a major war, damaging peace efforts in the western Darfur region and last year’s north-south peace deal.

The International Crisis Group called on the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), former southern rebels who are now part of a national unity government in Khartoum, to urge Sudan’s leadership to negotiate in good faith with the Eastern Front.

(ST)