Opposition alliance reportedly to attend peace talks in Kenya

BBC Monitoring Middle East

By Sudanese opposition National Democratic Alliance radio

NAIROBI, Oct 20. 2003 — The Al-Sharq-al-Awsat newspaper has revealed that [Sudanese First Vice-President] Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha has announced his government has agreed to allow the National Democratic Alliance [NDA] to participate in the ongoing peace talks between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement [SPLM] in Naivasha, Kenya, as a third party.

The NDA will participate in the talks for the first time ever in the history of the negotiations. This would allow the negotiations to take a more serious course with the expected arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday [22 October], to meet the Sudanese parties and to urge them to make further steps.

Sources close to the negotiations said the SPLM leader, John Garang, had proposed to Al-Bashir’s deputy that the NDA should participate in the negotiations as a third party. The source added that NDA’s delegation was in Naivasha, waiting for a response from both sides.