NCP official calls to delink between peace talks in Blue Nile and S. Kordofan
August 30, 2018 (KHARTOUM) – A prominent member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in the Blue Nile State called to seek a separate negotiated settlement for the conflict in their state from the conflict in the neighbouring South Kordofan.
In statements to the semi-official SMC, Abdel Rahman Abumedien urged the African Union to speed up the negotiation for peace in the Blue Nile State and to delink it from its efforts to end the conflict in the South Kordofan State.
“We cannot subject the negotiations on the Blue Nile state to the rift of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in the Nuba Mountains,” Abumedien who was the former said.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 included a special protocol dealing with the conflict the two states which are bordering South Sudan. In 2011, the armed conflict resumed in the two Area over the implementation of this peace deal.
After several years of unfruitful talks brokered by the African Union, a rift in the SPLM-N led to the emergence of two separate factions one led by Malik Agar and the other by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu.
As a result, the already paralyzed peace process is practically agonizing due to the huge gap between the positions of the parties.
Abumedien added that there was an agreement between the people of the state to delink their case from South Kordofan, pointing that they “waited a lot but to no avail”.
“So we will not pay attention to them, especially that the SPLM-N chairperson of Abdel Aziz al-Hilu faces pressures that preventing him from negotiating”.
Abumedien’s statements reflect the growing frustration at the local and national level over the continuation of the conflict in southern and southern east Sudan with its negative humanitarian and political impacts in the region.
On Wednesday Sudanese officials blamed the African Union chief mediator for the lack of progress in the Two Areas issue, as the round on talks is held once or two per year and it becomes now one of the three issues they strive to resolve besides the Darfur conflict and the democratic reforms in Sudan.
(ST)