Sudan peace talks adjourn for pilgrimage
By Wangui Kanina and Katie Nguyen
NAIVASHA, Kenya, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Sudan’s civil war foes began a three-week break in peace talks on Monday to allow a key negotiator to make a Muslim pilgrimage, hailing “substantial” progress on one of two remaining stumbling blocks.
Negotiations aimed at ending Africa’s longest-running civil war in the continent’s biggest country will resume on February 17 at a venue to be arranged by mediators.
The government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said in a joint statement they had also agreed to extend a truce in their 20-year-old conflict by a month to the end of February.
“The parties have agreed to temporarily adjourn the negotiations so that the First Vice President (Ali Osman Mohamed Taha) and his delegation can undertake the haj (pilgrimage) and celebrate eid,” the statement said, adding the delegates had been meeting continuously for 57 days.
Taha is the chief government negotiator at the talks, which have been taking place in Kenya for more than a year.
The SPLA, led by John Garang, has been fighting the Islamist government in the north for two decades for more autonomy for the largely Christian and animist south.
Disputes over oil, ethnicity and ideology have complicated the conflict, which has killed two million people and made four million homeless.
The United States has played a leading role in exerting pressure on both sides to reach an agreement, hoping to transform relations with a country where oil output is rising.
The latest round of talks between the government and SPLA began in early 2002, but do not cover a separate rebellion in western Sudan which shows no signs of abating.
The government and the SPLA signed a deal this month on sharing wealth after the war ends, but have not yet agreed on power sharing and three contested areas — Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile — claimed by both.
“Substantial progress was made on resolving the outstanding aspects relating to the two conflict areas of southern Kordofan (Nuba Mountains) and Blue Nile,” the joint statement said.
It added the two parties agreed that when talks resumed they would “finalise” all questions about the three areas, power-sharing and matters to do with implementing the accords.
Able-bodied Muslims are required to perform the haj, a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, at least once in their life. It begins in early February and lasts up to two weeks, ending with the Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday.
Some SPLA officials told reporters they would have preferred to keep negotiating. One voiced suspicion the break was a time-wasting exercise.
“We feel it could have been better for us to continue,” said the SPLA’s Yasser Arman. “It (the adjournment) indicates a degree of a lack of interest rather than serious intention. Even from the Islamic perspective the vice president went to haj…before.”
But a government spokesman said: “We have already spent enough time on this round of talks.
“The first vice president has worked for a long time. He has business to take care of back home and he must fulfil his religious obligations.”