Sudan president hails east-African body for mediation efforts

KHARTOUM, Aug 27 (AFP) — President Omar al-Beshir hailed the east-African Intergovernmental Authority on Development for its efforts in mediating Sudanese peace talks and expressed his commitment to peace, state media said Wednesday.

The “IGAD forum remains an important vehicle for achieving peace as it is the government’s strategic option,” Beshir told the new Kenyan ambassador to Khartoum, Elijah Matibo, the official SUNA news agency reported.

Kenya is the main mediator in talks between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

“What has so far been achieved in the IGAD-sponsored peace process exceeds 80 percent of solving the Sudanese problem,” Beshir said.

On Saturday, delegates holding talks in Nanyuki, Kenya agreed to suspend negotiations until September 10 in order to consult their leaders, mediators said.

The latest round of peace talks, which opened on August 11, focused on how to share power and resources during a six-year interim period of self-rule for southern Sudan. However, they reached deadlock just days after kicking off.

Khartoum maintained its objection to an IGAD draft document, which it said provided for measures that would lead to a de facto secession of southern Sudan, the independent Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper said Friday.

According to the Akhbar al-Youm daily, chief mediator General Lazaro Sumbeiywo was nevertheless optimistic about the talks, saying that 75 percent of issues had been solved.

What remains “requires willpower, flexibility and credibility on the part of the two sides to offer peace as a gift to the Sudanese people who suffered a great deal from the war,” the independent daily quoted him as saying in its Sunday edition.

Sudan’s civil war between the Arab Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people.