Sudan govt, south rebels to sign peace deal Jan-agency

By Khaled Abdel-Aziz

KHARTOUM, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) will sign a peace agreement in Kenya in January to end 21 years of civil war in the south, says a senior Sudanese official.

John Garang, and Ali Osman Taha shake hands, Thursday, Oct.7, 04, during the opening of the fifth session of the high level consultative meeting on the Peace Talks in Nairobi. (AP).

“The final signing for peace will be on Jan. 10 in the presidential palace in Nairobi,” Sudanese presidential political adviser Qutbi al-Mahdi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Sudanese Media Centre (SMC).

The government and SPLA had pledged to end Africa’s longest running civil war in Sudan’s oil-rich south by a deadline of Dec. 31 during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in November. Both sides have said they hoped to meet the deadline.

A Kenyan government spokesman said no date had been confirmed for any signing of a peace agreement.

“It is not as yet confirmed. I know some dates had been mentioned in January, but no final arrangements have been made,” Alfred Mutua told Reuters in Nairobi.

The SPLA and Kenyan mediators earler said talks had been continuing and would go on through the Christmas period to secure a deal by the deadline.

The peace talks in Kenya do not cover a separate conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where rebels took up arms last year. That conflict has created what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Southern rebels began fighting in 1983, when Khartoum tried to impose Islamic sharia law on the mainly animist and Christian south. Oil, religion and ideology have complicated the war that has driven 4 million people from their homes.

Both parties have signed key accords over the past 15 months on security arrangements, power-sharing, wealth-sharing and the status of three disputed areas during a six-year interim period.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere, on a visit to Khartoum earlier this month, had also expressed optimism over a deal to end the fighting that has killed 2 million Sudanese.

Mahdi was quoted by the SMC as saying arrangements related to signing a peace deal were discussed during Mwakwere’s visit.

Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang have held face-to-face talks in recent days in the Kenyan Rift Valley town of Naivasha to resolve sticking points.

Thorny issues include the funding of the SPLA forces, whether sharia law will apply in Khartoum during an interim period, the powers of a vice-president and payment of lucrative oil revenues to the south.

(With additional reporting by C. Bryson Hull in Nairobi)