Darfur rebel JEM says will participate in Abuja talks

ADDIS ABABA, May 26 (AFP) — One of the two main rebel groups in Sudan’s troubled western region of Darfur said it would participate in the resumption of stalled African Union-sponsored peace talks next month.

JEM official Ahmed Tugod.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it would was ready to take part without conditions in the negotiations that are to resume on June 10 after a six-month suspension in the Nigerian capital of Abuja.

“We engage ourselves to come to the Abuja talks without any conditions we are coming with an open mind, it is the right time to find the solution to the conflict of Darfur,” said senior JEM official Ahmed Tugod.

“We seriously want to solve the problem through peaceful means,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference to raise money and logistical support for the AU’s peace mission in Darfur.

During the course of that conference AU chief Alpha Oumar Konare announced that the peace talks, which had been due to resume on May 30, would now begin on June 10.

The AU mission is monitoring a shaky April 2004 ceasefire between Khartoum, government-backed militias and the two rebel groups, the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).

Amid persistent violations of that truce, peace talks between the rebels and Khartoum were suspended in December, leading to a significant deterioration in the situation in Darfur, that UN officials say is home of one of the world’s worst current humanitarian crises.

The two-year-old conflict in Darfur, pitting Khartoum and government-backed militia and the rebels has killed between 180,000 and 300,000 people and displaced two million.

The fighting began in February 2003 after repeated complaints from Darfur’s African population that they were being neglected by the Arab government in Khartoum.