Sudanese Vice President discusses Abyei status before returning to peace talks
KHARTOUM, March 11 (AFP) — Sudan’s chief delegate in peace talks with southern rebels discussed here Thursday the status of the contested region of Abyei, a main obstacle in ending Africa’s oldest civil war, officials said.
First Vice President Ali Osman Taha broke off talks with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Kenya and returned to Khartoum for talks on the contested region, the officials said.
Taha was due to consult members of Sudan’s National Assembly, or parliament, after meeting government officials, before returning to Kenya later Thursday, they added.
Sudanese peace talks have stalled over the future of Abyei, believed to be rich in oil and which the SPLA claims to represent.
But the central region lies on the northern side of an administrative border laid out in a 1956 mandate from British colonial rule, which Khartoum and the SPLA use to delineate between north and south Sudan.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Beshir has repeatedly refused to let Abyei, where Arab tribes live, come under an SPLA-administered southern Sudan.
In comments published Thursday, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said Taha’s round of contacts were intended to move the process forward.
“The government does not want to create problems but wants to be consistent in its position based on the documents,” Ismail said, alluding to the British mandate.
Taha had been due to return to Kenya on Wednesday but postponed his trip for 24 hours to allow for Thursday’s contacts.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last week that he hoped the main stumbling blocks in the peace talks would be solved before the end of March.
The latest round of peace talks between Khartoum and the SPLA started on Februray 17 in Naivasha, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi, and is due to be wrapped up by March 18.
They aim to end the deadly civil war, which erupted in 1983 between the south, where most observe traditional African religions and Christianity, and the Muslim, Arabised north.
The conflict along with war-related famine and disease has claimed at least 1.5 million lives, mostly in the south.