British envoy optimistic about peace in Sudan

KHARTOUM, Aug 28 (AFP) — British envoy Alan Goulty said here Thursday an accord between the Islamist government in Khartoum and the southern rebels to end Sudan’s 20-year civil war could be reached “very soon.”

“Very soon,” he told a press conference, when asked when he expected a final peace deal to be signed between Khartoum and the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA).

“I am optimistic that peace will be achieved in Sudan and, like many Sudanese, I believe there is no alternative to the present peace process for putting an end to the suffering of the Sudanese people,” he said.

The envoy was speaking at the end of two-day visit to Sudan that followed trips to Uganda and Kenya.

Britain and the United States are closely monitoring the talks held under the sponsorship of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the east African group made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia.

Goulty said his tour was part of the preparations for the next round of talks, slated for September 10 in Kenya.

Khartoum and the SPLA failed to reach a final agreement in the last and seventh round of talks which wound up Saturday in Kenya.

The round focused on how power and resources should be shared during a promised six-year period of self-rule for the predominantly Christian and animist south in the runup to a referendum on independence.

The war in Sudan is Africa’s oldest armed conflict. It has claimed at least 1.5 million lives, with at least another four million people displaced.