Sudan to sign reconciliation deal with opposition

CAIRO, June 17, 2005 (Xinhua) — The Sudanese government will sign a reconciliation deal with a major opposition group on Saturday, a source close to the ongoing inter-Sudanese negotiations said here Friday.

John Garang in a meeting with the NDA direction in Cairo , May 2, 2005. On his right Gen Abdelrahman Saeed vice president of the NDA.

“The two committees tasked with ironing out the details of the final agreement have completed their work,” said the source, adding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Sudanese counterpart Omar el-Bashir are expected to attend the signing ceremony.

Sudanese officials and representatives from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have been holding talks in Cairo, Egypt, since Sunday, in a bid to sort out a number of outstanding issues to finalize an agreement.

The agreement was initiated in Cairo between the two sides on Jan. 16 after a series of Egyptian-sponsored talks, under which theSudanese government agreed to share power with the NDA.

The NDA, an umbrella opposition group, includes most of the major northern opposition parties and the south-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

The two sides also indicated support for the peace deal signed by Khartoum and the SPLA on Jan. 9 in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, which brought an end to the longest-running civil war on the African continent.

The latest round of inter-Sudanese negotiations were conducted through two technical commissions, the first focusing on NDA’s armed groups in eastern Sudan and the second setting a timetable for implementing the agreement.