Sudan talks move on to cover toughest points in peace deal

NAIROBI, Dec 23 (AFP) — Sudan’s government and main southern rebel group tackled the sticking points in a peace process as experts fine-tuned a deal on a 50-50 split of oil revenue, Kenya’s foreign minister and mediation officials said.

The two delegations led by Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha for the government and John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA), on Friday reached a rough agreement on sharing the proceeds from the country’s 300,000 daily barrels of oil.

“After reaching the deal, Garang and Taha started negotiations on the three conflict regions and power-sharing while the technical committees and experts worked on the details of the resource-sharing agreement,” an official in the mediation team told AFP on Tuesday.

“Wealth-sharing is now off the table because the two principals… finally settled for roughly 50-50,” added the official, who asked not to be named.

Oil accounts for some 43 percent of government revenue and has been central to the current — and supposedly final — round of talks aimed at ending 20 years of civil war.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka told AFP by phone that Garang and Taha, who were due to witness the signing of a wealth-sharing deal on Tuesday, had instead decided “to handle the remaining issues altogether, wholesomely, with a view of reaching general agreements before the end of the year.”

“They are working very hard to agree on the remaining issues before the end of this year. I am very optimistic that they will beat the December deadline” that they committed themselves to before US Secretary of State Colin Powell in October, Musyoka said.

Chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan army general told AFP that he was “hopeful that the two leaders would strike a final deal as per their December commitment.”

“Then other implementation procedures will be worked out later,” in January, Sumbeiywo said.

The two key issues still on the negotiating table are power-sharing and the future of three disputed regions.

These regions are Abyei, Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile state, which lie north of the administrative boundaries left over by Britain on independence in 1956, and are claimed by both the government and the rebels.

Most of Sudan’s oil is drawn from fields in the south.

On power-sharing, the two sides are discussing how to share the political and administrative posts in an envisaged transitional government.

SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje told AFP both sides had expressed a “willingness to Sumbeiywo to go on with the talks over the Christmas period.”

The war in Sudan, which erupted in 1983, has pitted the south, where most observe traditional African religions and Christianity, against the Muslim, Arabised north.

The conflict has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced an estimated four million people.

Previous rounds of talks, also in Kenya, have yielded success, first in 2002 when the foes agreed that after six years of self-rule the south will hold a referendum on whether to join the north — and under what arrangement — or secede.

In September, Garang and Taha clinched a deal on transitional security arrangements.