Impatient US says time for Sudan peace deal is “now”
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (AFP) — Frustrated by snags in negotiating a peace deal to end Sudan’s long-running civil war, the United States on Thursday told Khartoum and southern rebels that it was now time to reach an agreement.
“The key substantive issues have now been put on the table,” deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said in a statement.
“It is the responsibility of the parties to bridge the divide that separates them and to take the courageous decisions needed to reach a final agreement,” he said.
“The time to reach an agreement is now, the Sudan conflict has lasted far too long,” Reeker said of the nearly 21-year-old war.
A new round of peace talks between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) rebel movement is set to start in Kenya on Sunday, but Sudan has threatened not to attend unless a draft accord is modified.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram in an interview that unless the body hosting the talks, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), took up the changes Khartoum would stay away.
“If not, or if the (new) initiative is not acceptable, the meeting due Sunday in Nakuru will not happen,” he said, referring to the Kenyan town that is to be the venue for the talks. “Next Sunday will be a decisive day.”
In the last round of talks with the SPLA, in July, Khartoum rejected an IGAD draft on outstanding issues such as power- and wealth-sharing and security arrangements during a six-year transition period agreed to last year.
It said the draft was a prelude to a secession of southern Sudan with a separate army and independent central bank during the interim phase.
The Sudanese government and the SPLA struck a breakthrough accord last July granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting the south from Islamic laws.
The SPLA has been fighting since 1983 to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum.
The conflict, the oldest in Africa, has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people since 1983.