Powell to lend weight to Sudan peace talks with carrots for Khartoum
By Matthew Lee
NAIROBI, Oct 21 (AFP) — US Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared Tuesday to lend his weight to Kenyan-hosted peace talks aimed at ending Sudan’s 20-year-old civil war armed with a package of incentives to boost chances for a deal.
Powell said Washington was ready “to invest all that we can” diplomatically and politically into the peace process and that it would launch a sweeping review of its sanctions-heavy Sudan policy should an agreement be reached.
“I thought it would be useful (to) stop here and try to put some energy into the talks and see if I could help them to get closer to a solution,” he told reporters accompanying him shortly before arriving in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The talks, in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, appear to be nearing a resolution to end a war that has been raging since 1983 between the Islamic government in Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a southern rebel group.
“Let’s not miss this opportunity,” Powell said, noting recent significant progress in the talks, particularly a landmark security agreement reached last month.
The current round of talks center on power- and wealth-sharing and the status of three disputed central territories.
While a final deal is not expected to be sealed in Powell’s presence, the two delegations are widely thought to be in the final stages of putting an agreement together.
Powell meets on Wednesday with Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang and said he would make clear to them that US President George W. Bush is anxious to see an end to Africa’s longest-running civil war.
Bush wants to see “it resolved and recognize the achievement of it in an appropriate manner,” Powell said, hinting at the possibility of a White House ceremony to commemorate the occasion.
More concretely, a comprehensive settlement accompanied by improved counter-terrorism cooperation would trigger the policy review and could lead to an upgrading of the diplomatic ties and removal of Sudan from the US blacklist of “state sponsors of terrorism.”
“We would see a comprehensive settlement (as) really opening a new day in our relationship with Sudan,” he said.
The “state sponsors” designation carries with it heavy penalties, and Khartoum, which has been on the list for the past 10 years, has been pushing to be taken off.
Powell allowed that in recent years Sudan had improved its record on terrorism, particularly with regard to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
But he stressed that Washington now wanted Khartoum to close down offices and expel members of the anti-Israel groups in the capital.
“What I’d like to see them do is … expel Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) from having any presence whatsoever in Khartoum,” he said. “That would be a nice step for them to take.”
Hopes for a settlement to the Sudan conflict, in which more than 1.5 million people have been killed and four million others displaced, have been running high since September when Taha and Garang signed the security deal.
That deal sets out security arrangements to be put in place during a six-year post-war period of autonomy for the south ahead of a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede. That period of autonomy was clinched in a breakthrough in July 2002.
Sudan’s civil war erupted in 1983 when the SPLA took up arms to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Muslim north.
Natural resources such as oil have in recent years taken up a more central role in the conflict.