Nigeria’s Obasanjo urges implementation of Sudan peace accord
Feb 27, 2006 (ABUJA) — Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo Tuesday called for the full implementation of a peace accord in Sudan upon meeting with the east African nation’s foreign minister, an official statement said.
Obasanjo received the minister Lam Akol, a special envoy of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and said that implementing the peace accord, which gave birth to the formation of a government of national unity, must also be hastened, it said.
Describing the accord as “one of the greatest events in recent times in Africa,” Obasanjo who is the immediate past chairman of the African Union (AU), said that the removal of all impediments to the accord would make Sudan realise its potential “to be a great African country.”
He called for the urgent conclusion of the ongoing negotiations towards a peace agreement on Darfur.
Akol attributed the slow implementation of the agreement to the non-passage of the necessary acts of parliament and non-fulfillment of financial pledges by donor countries.
He did not give further details.
The minister commended Nigeria for hosting the Sudanese peace talks, now in their seventh round, and said that the government of national unity in Sudan believed that political settlement was the ultimate solution to the Darfur crisis.
The war in Darfur broke out three years ago, when black ethnic groups launched a rebellion against the Khartoum government, which was brutally put down by the al-Beshir regime.
(ST)