Darfur rebels expect to take talks decision Friday

By Tume Ahemba

ABUJA, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Darfur rebels were set to announce later on Friday whether they were pulling out of stalled three-week-old peace talks with the Sudan government.

The talks are aimed at finding a political solution to the 19-month conflict in Sudan’s vast arid western region, which the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

But they have floundered on security issues key to quelling the violence that has so far displaced a million people and killed up to 50,000.

The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), one of the two rebel groups at the talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja, said it would make a formal announcement at 1400 GMT.

Darfur’s other rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said on Wednesday the talks had definitely collapsed, but a day later said it would await the SLM’s decision before making any further pronouncements on the negotiations.

“Definitely today will be the last day,” said JEM negotiator Ahmed Mohammed Tugod on Friday.

The rebels said they would communicate their decisions to African Union (AU) chairman and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo through AU mediators rather than meet him as originally planned.

The SLM and JEM launched an uprising against Khartoum in February 2003 after years of low-level fighting between Arab nomads and mainly African farmers over scarce resources.

The rebels have so far refused to sign a humanitarian agreement to improve aid agencies’ access to refugees, saying Khartoum must disarm its Arab Janjaweed militia allies and let more AU troops and monitors into the region.

The government has said rebels must start moving into containment areas before it will begin disarming the Janjaweed. The rebels have so far refused to agree to this.