Sudan vice president arrives in Kenya for peace talks with rebels

NAIROBI, Oct 16 (AFP) — Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha arrived here Thursday for a new round of peace talks with southern rebels in the Kenyan Rift Valley town of Naivasha.

“We are glad to be back in Nairobi to resume another round of peace talks in Kenya, which we hope will be the final one,” Taha told journalists on arrival at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

“We are determined to fully resolve the outstanding issues in this round and we hope to come out with a comprehensive settlement,” Taha said.

The talks, which will focus on issues still waiting to be resolved in a peace process that has already seen several agreements signed since July last year, were to have resumed in Naivasha on Wednesday, but were delayed because Taha and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang had not arrived.

Garang is expected to arrive in Kenya late Thursday.

Taha and Garang are due to discuss power- and wealth-sharing between the mainly Islamic and Arab north of Sudan and the Christian and animist south. The two sides have been locked in war since 1983, in which more than 1.5 million people have been killed and more than four million others displaced.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka told Taha on his arrival that “the fact that you have chosen to come back so soon gives everybody hope that soon there will be peace in the region.”

The last round of talks ended late September when the two leaders signed a deal on the security arrangements to be put in place during a six-year transition period, during which the south will enjoy self-rule.

After the test period of autonomy, an internationally supervised referendum will be held to allow southern Sudanese to choose whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent.