Sudan FM says expects a peace deal with south rebels in days

MANAMA, April 25 (Reuters) – Sudan expects a peace deal between the government and southern rebels to end Africa’s longest-running civil war to be reached within days, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Sunday.

“I have been in contact. Negotiations are moving forward. I am hoping to reach an agreement within a few days,” the minister told a news conference during a visit to Bahrain.

“We are confident we are not very far from reaching a comprehensive agreement,” he said.

Ismail said First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha had returned to the peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, to lead the negotiations for the government.

Talks between Khartoum and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) have been complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology, and a separate conflict in the western Darfur region.

Ismail said the government was ready to make concessions to the rebels “as long as they do not cross the red line”. He did not elaborate.

The SPLA has been fighting for greater autonomy for the mainly Christian and animist south from the Muslim, Arabic-speaking north.