Powell departs Thailand for Kenya to support Sudan peace talks
BANGKOK, Oct 21 (AFP) — US Secretary of State Colin Powell departed Thailand for Kenya to lend support to Sudan peace talks and meet top Kenyan officials, officials said.
Powell was in Thailand for a meeting of ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum ahead of the group’s summit attended by US President George W. Bush.
The Sudan peace talks, the latest round of which opened northwest of Nairobi on Friday, appear to be nearing a resolution to end a two-decades-old war between the government and southern rebels.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Powell will “engage with parties in the Sudanese parties to encourage progress in the peace process”.
Boucher added that Powell would also see senior officials in the Kenyan government to follow up on President Mwai Kibaki’s state visit to Washington earlier this month during which the war on terrorism was a major topic.
Both sides have noted substantial progress in the talks, which last month produced a landmark security agreement, and, along with mediators and other observers, have predicted a final settlement may be at hand.
US officials have downplayed suggestions that Powell’s presence at the talks is a sign of imminent success and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has stressed that the secretary plans only to “encourage progress.”
“If we can go there and help this process along, if we can help this process toward a conclusion, it’s a useful and important investment of the secretary’s time,” a senior State Department official said Monday.
“That’s why we’re going,” the official told reporters who are accompanying Powell at the annual APEC forum then on to Nairobi and then to Madrid for an Iraq donors conference.
But in addition to ending the Sudan war, in which more than 1.5 million people have been killed and four million others displaced, success at the Kenya talks may reap unintended benefits for the United States, officials said.
An agreement on Sudan could send a powerful message to the Muslim world, particularly in Arab nations where US popularity has plummeted because of the deteriorating Middle East situation and the war in Iraq, they said.
While stressing that the aim of US involvement in the Sudan peace process was to help the Sudanese people, the officials noted pointedly that President George W. Bush has been a firm backer of the peace process and early in his term appointed a special envoy for Sudan.
Earlier this month, during Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki’s state visit to Washington, Bush vowed to intensify his administration’s support of and engagement in the peace talks, they observed.
“We’ve been involved in this for a long time,” one official said from Washington. “It doesn’t make big headlines but it’s an example of our to help and seek peace for everyone, Muslims too.”
“It can’t hurt to be associated with something that produces real results for them,” the official said.
However, the officials insisted there were no plans to try to take advantage of possible success in Sudan to boost the flagging US image in the Middle East.
“Is there something wrong with helping people make peace?” the senior State Department official snapped in Bangkok when asked whether the Bush administration thought it could cash in on a Sudan peace deal.
The latest round of talks began on Friday with Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), heading their respective delegations.
After reaching last month’s security deal — which lay out arrangements for a six-year transition period during which the rebel-controlled south will be autonomous — Taha and Garang are now focusing on the delicate issues of power- and wealth-sharing.
Under a tentative arrangement reached last month, after the test period of autonomy, an internationally supervised referendum will be held to allow the southern Sudanese to choose whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent.