Sudan signs deal with northern rebels ahead of fresh peace talks

KHARTOUM, Dec 4 (AFP) — Sudan’s government signed a peace deal with northern rebels a day before it was due to receive a southern rebel delegation in the capital Khartoum for the first time in two decades of civil war.

The agreement between the government and the northern Democratic Unionist party came as the government and southern rebels prepared to resume high-level peace talks in Kenya that have so far excluded the northerners.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha signed the peace accord in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah with northern opposition leader Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani, according to Sudan’s ambassador in the Saudi capital.

Mirghani, who lives in exile in Cairo and Asmara, had recently warned that his party’s exclusion from the government’s peace talks with the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Kenya augured badly for peace prospects.

SPLA leader John Garang told AFP on Wednesday that he wants to share power not only with President Omar al-Beshir but with other political leaders once the ongoing peace process brings an end to the 20-year civil war.

He had met in Cairo in May with Mirghani and Sadeq al-Mahdi, head of the Umma Party, the other main northern opposition party.

The fresh round of talks with the southern rebels and the rebel visit to Khartoum Friday highlight the dramatic progress both sides have made toward ending the war in the two years since the United States threw its weight behind the negotiations.

The SPLM said it hopes the talks in Khartoum, which have been well publicized here, will not only bolster the peace process but lead to the group’s transformation into a full nationwide party.

Pulling out all the stops, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) will offer full accommodation and transport to the senior SPLM delegates during their stay in Khartoum.

The United States expects a final agreement to end the war to be signed by the end of the year.

The visit is aimed at improving the atmosphere, accelerating the switch to democracy, building confidence and achieving national consensus, SPLA spokesman Yassir Arman said in an interview published here Thursday.

Arman told the independent newspaper Akhbar Al Youm that the delegation also seeks to transform the SPLM into a mass political movement that covers all regions of Sudan.

National elections are expected to follow the end of the war, though no date or even year has been set for them.

The talks are aimed at ending a war that erupted in 1983 between the SPLA, which has sought to defend the rights of animists and Christians in the south, and successive Arab and Muslim governments in the north.

The northern opposition groups joined the SPLA in 1995 in Eritrea in taking up arms against Beshir, but their unity lasted only a few months.

In Kenya, Garang is scheduled to resume high-level negotiations with Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha on Friday.

The outstanding issues are finding formulas to share political power, divide up the oil wealth and determine the status of the capital Khartoum, as well as that of three disputed regions.

In Khartoum, SPLA representatives launched a media campaign Wednesday, holding their first press conference here since the war broke out.

Ramadan Mohamed Abdullah, a Khartoum resident who identified himself as SPLM spokesman, said his movement had operated here clandestinely for years, with members risking arrest, but could now go public because of progress toward peace.

He said the delegation would meet Beshir and other NCP officials as well as leaders of the opposition Umma, Democratic Unionist, Popular Congress and other parties in addition to heads of the civil society groups.