Sudan peace talks adjourn until October 6-mediator

NAIVASHA, Kenya, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Sudan’s civil war foes adjourned three weeks of peace talks on Friday after clinching a security deal that cleared a major stumbling block in efforts to end their 20-year-old conflict, a mediator said.

Sudan’s government and main rebel group the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) signed a key security accord on Thursday during the negotiations aimed at resolving Africa’s longest war, which has killed some two million people.

Security had been the biggest sticking point in the talks between Sudan’s First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and SPLA head John Garang.

“We adjourned the meeting and the (government and SPLA) committees are going to meet on the 6th of next month,” Kenyan chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo told reporters at the talks venue near Lake Naivasha, 90 km (55 miles) from Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

“The principal leaders, Ali Osman Taha and John Garang, have agreed to meet again but have not yet set a date.”

Differences remain on a host of other issues — ranging from the status of the capital Khartoum to how to share power and wealth from the south’s lucrative oilfields.

Peace has eluded Sudan despite years of efforts to end the civil war, which broke out in 1983, pitting the Islamist government in the north against rebels seeking greater autonomy in the mainly animist and Christian south.

There was a notable breakthrough last year when the two sides agreed to give southerners the right to a referendum on secession after a six-year transition.