Salva Kiir says Sudan peace crisis is over
November 4, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese First Vice President and Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Salva Kiir Mayardit announced on Sunday that a current political crisis in the country had ended.
“I confirm that the crisis is over,” Mayardit told a press conference in Khartoum before leaving to USA, noting that when Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir and he returned from visits abroad they would issue decisions on what had been agreed upon between them.
Al-Bashir left Khartoum on Saturday for a visit in Burundi and South Africa, while Salva Kiir will kick off a visit in the United States later Sunday.
The former rebel SPLM, which signed a peace agreement with al-Bashir’s government in 2005, announced on Oct. 11 surprisingly a decision to suspend the participation of its ministers in the central government to protest over what it called a “procrastination” of the implementation of the peace deal.
“I confirm again that we are advancing on the peace road, and we want to send a placative message to the Sudanese people that we will not turn back from the implementation of the peace agreement, “Mayardit stressed.
He disclosed that in their last meeting, al-Bashir and he had worked out solutions for most of the differences, adding that the Abyei issue was the only pending problem to be solved soon.
The Khartoum government has insisted that Abyei, an enclave rich of oil locating on the north side of the so-called “1956 line ” between the northern and southern Sudan, should be included in the northern territories while the southern Sudanese government led by Mayardit has laid a claim to it.
Mayardit said that his visit in the U.S. was aimed at informing the American administration of the progresses of implementing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and enhancing the bilateral relations between the two countries.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Treasury issued a rule excluding southern Sudan from the sanctions imposed by Washington on Sudan since a decade.
The new rule revised the areas of Sudan covered by the sanctions and recognized the government of Southern Sudan as an entity separate from the Government of Sudan.
(Xinhua)