Darfur peace talks fully under way

Jan 26, 2006 (LAGOS) — Peace talks aimed at ending the bloody war in the Sudanese region of Darfur are once more fully under way after the latest in a series of hold-ups, an African Union spokesman said.

Noureddine Mezni of the AU said: “All the three frameworks – security arrangements, power sharing and wealth-sharing commissions – established for negotiation during the present round of talks resumed deliberations.”

AU officials had brought representatives of the Khartoum government and Darfur’s indigenous rebel movement to Abuja, Nigeria, in a bid to bring to an end a conflict which has been raging for almost two years.

Progress had been slow, but mediators said that by dividing delegates into working groups they had made progress in seeking agreements on strengthening a shaky ceasefire and laying the foundations of a political settlement.

Mezni said the commission on security arrangements met on Wednesday to begin in-depth discussions on “security arrangements for an enhanced humanitarian ceasefire”, after it received the written positions of the Sudanese parties.

AU mediators also had asked the United Nations to provide expert technical advisors to enhance their negotiating capacities.

Mezni said: “These advisors are expected to assist the AU and the parties on the practical issues of disarmament, the cantonment of fighters and demobilisation.”

During a session on Tuesday, AU special envoy Salim Ahmed Salim had warned of the “total impatience of the UN and the international community at the very slow progress” made in the last two months since talks resumed.

He urged the rebel groups and the government in Khartoum to “accelerate the process, negotiate with more seriousness and flexibility… without engaging in polemics, in order to reach a global accord in a few weeks”.

The AU had deployed a 7 000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur, which had been in the throes of a civil war since February 2003, and which had claimed between 180 000 and 300 000 lives and displaced more than two million people.

(ST/AFP)