Sudan govt hopes for south peace deal by year-end

KHARTOUM, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government said it was still confident a deal could be reached to end the 21-year-old civil war in the south of the country with less than three days to go before an end of year deadline to conclude peace talks.

But diplomats said talks between the government and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) southern rebels might well drag on beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, agreed at a U.N. Security Council meeting.

“The two sides are committed to carrying out their obligation to the international community by ending the round (of talks) before Dec. 31,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters.

“There is great hope for reaching a peace agreement in 72 hours,” he said.

A senior Sudanese official said this month a final signing would take place on Jan. 10 in Kenya, which has hosted the peace talks in the Kenyan Rift Valley town of Naivasha.

Diplomats following the talks said the timetable could still be met, but added there were still outstanding issues to resolve that could delay a deal.

They said both sides were still aiming to announce that agreement had been reached by Dec. 31, with the signing ceremony attended by dignitaries on Jan. 10. But those dates could slip.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the deadlines are pushed slightly ahead,” said Kent Dagerfield, head of the European Union delegation in Khartoum, although he said he was still hopeful the deadline would be met.

“They haven’t resolved the funding for the southern army and they have not resolved the status of the capital either,” he told Reuters, speaking from outside Sudan.

Talks about the status of the capital include whether sharia, Islamic law, will prevail in Khartoum. The imposition of sharia across the ethnically and religiously diverse country was one of the catalysts for the civil war that erupted in 1983.

The southern rebellion broadly pits the Islamist, Arabic-speaking government in the north against rebels seeking greater autonomy for the animist and Christian south. Oil, ethnicity and ideology have complicated the conflict.

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.