Sudanese president confident that efforts to end civil war in Sudan
KAMPALA, Uganda, Oct. 24, 2003 (AP) — Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir told regional leaders Friday that he is confident that his government and rebels fighting a 20-year civil war will reach an agreement to end the conflict.
“We are very confident that a comprehensive peace deal with prevail in Sudan,” Bashir said at regional summit. “There are positive signals that this year could become the year of peace.”
A 15-month peace process to end the war in Sudan is inching toward its conclusion. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met Sudanese negotiators in neighboring Kenya on Wednesday to pressure the warring parties to reach a comprehensive peace deal by the end of December.
The war broke out in 1983 when rebels from the largely animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north. More than 2 million people have been killed in the conflict, mainly through war-induced famine.
Last month, the warring parties made a major breakthrough by agreeing to allow the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA, to retain its forces in southern Sudan, the main area of the conflict, during a six-year transition period.
Bashir said this was one of the most complicated issues “which opens the door to address the outstanding issues of power and wealth sharing and the three conflict areas” in central Sudan.
Bashir is attending an Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, summit in the Ugandan capital.
IGAD, which includes Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya, is mediating the Sudanese peace talks, which are taking place in Kenya.
Leaders at the summit discussed efforts to end the war in Sudan, the peace process in Ethiopia and Eritrea and attempts to end the more than a decade of chaos and violence in Somalia on Friday.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that he would order a cease-fire with rebels fighting in northern Uganda if the insurgents agree to his demands.
Museveni has previously called for a cease-fire with the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army but fighting has continued.