US envoy held talks with eastern Sudan rebels
Aug 22, 2005 (Khartoum) — A US envoy held talks with ethnic minority rebels in eastern Sudan Monday a day after meeting the largest rebel faction in Darfur as Washington stepped up efforts to bring peace to the whole country.
US State Department envoy Roger Winter met separately with the governor of Red Sea State, Hatim al-Sammani, and representatives of the rebel Beja Congress, the official SUNA news agency reported.
The discussions focused on issues at the heart of the decade-old rebellion among the Beja people of eastern Sudan, such as access to resources and government services, SUNA said.
Winter’s talks in eastern Sudan came a day after he met leaders of the Sudan Liberation Army, the biggest faction behind the two-and-a-half year uprising in he western region of Darfur.
Later in the week, the US envoy is to travel to southern Sudan in a bid to help consolidate a landmark January peace deal between the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and southern rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that Washington helped broker.
AFP/ST