Sudan asks Libya to sponsor talks on Darfur crisis
TRIPOLI, July 26 (AFP) — Sudan has asked Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi to sponsor peace talks to bring an end to 18 months of bloodshed in its troubled Darfur region, the official Libyan news agency JANA reported on Monday.
A Sudanese ministerial delegation on Sunday delivered a message from President Omar al-Beshir calling on Kadhafi to “sponsor peace negotiations on Darfur,” the news agency said.
Sudan’s Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and Agriculture Minister Majzub al-Khalifa Ahmed delivered the message during a visit to neighbouring Libya on Sunday.
African Union-sponsored peace talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa broke down on July 18 without an agreement between the Khartoum government and the two ethnic minority rebel groups active in Darfur.
The United Nations has warned that conflict in Darfur has plunged the western Sudanese region into the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.
The UN says up to 50,000 people have died since a revolt against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum broke out among the indigenous minorities in February 2003.
More than a million people have been driven from their villages in the conflict pitting government forces and state-sponsored Arab militias against two rebel movements — the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Movement for Justice and Equality.
Washington, the United Nations and the European Union have demanded that Khartoum immediately disarm the militias and make them respect a ceasefire signed April 8 after talks in the Chadian capital Ndjamena.
The US Congress last week adopted a resolution describing the atrocities committed in Darfur as genocide and calling on the White House to lead international efforts to intervene.
The EU warned at the weekend that Sudan would face international sanctions if there was not quick progress in ending the bloodshed.
Tripoli earlier this month announced the creation of a humanitarian corridor from Libya to Sudan and Chad to bring help to those displaced by the fighting.
On Sunday, Kadhafi held high-level talks with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and the head of the country’s intelligence service to discuss the situation in Darfur.