African Union mediator to visit Sudan next week

July 24, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The former South African president and head of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki is expected in Khartoum next week to discuss the resumption of peace talks in Sudan.

Following the failure of a meeting called by the AUHIP to discuss the preparatory measures and ways to hold the national dialogue process inside Sudan last March, the Sudanese government and the mediation traded accusations over the collapse of the meeting which had to gather the all the Sudanese political forces and civil society groups.

Mbeki will start a visit to Sudan next week, reactivate the stalled national dialogue, and the peace talks with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) on the Two Areas, said Ashorooq TV on Friday without further details.

At the time, different sources told Sudan Tribune that the chief mediator was infuriated by the refusal of the Sudanese government to participate in the pre-dialogue meeting which had to be held on 30-31 March in Addis Ababa.

AUHIP in a statement issued in April said Sudanese officials reassured them they would attend the two-day meeting as it was part of a roadmap adopted by the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AUPSC) and accepted by Khartoum.

Last September the AUPSC tasked Mbeki with the facilitation of the national dialogue initiative launched by president Omer al-Bashir in January 2014. Accordingly, he had also to organize two tracks of negotiations between government, the SPLM-N and Darfur rebel groups to end war and discuss security arrangements.

Initially Mbeki was mandated with the peace talks between the government and the SPLM-N to end the four-year conflict in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

(ST)