Powell: Sudan Accord On Track
Official Disputes December Goal
By Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
Thursday, October 23, 2003; Page A24
NAIVASHA, Kenya, Oct. 22 — The warring parties in the long-running Sudanese conflict agreed to conclude negotiations no later than the end of December, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Wednesday after meeting with both sides at their negotiating site here.
“It is time now for the leaders assembled here to finish the final stage of this marathon,” Powell said. “Based on what I heard here today, I believe that a final agreement is in the grasp of the two parties.”
The conflict, which has lasted nearly half a century with brief periods of peace, has pitted the northern, Muslim part of the country against the mostly animist and Christian south. The current round of peace talks has lasted a decade, and involves not only questions of religion and autonomy but also how to carve up the nation’s resources, especially oil reserves.
Powell told reporters traveling with him that he was “pretty confident” the December deadline could be met. He said he wanted the parties to commit to an end date, and they suggested December, which would take into account a slowdown in talks during the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan. “It was as much their date as it was a desire on my part to push them to a date,” he said.
After Powell left Kenya, however, a senior Sudanese government official threw cold water on Powell’s announcement, Agence-France Presse reported from Naivasha. “It is impossible for anyone to dictate a date on the two parties that are negotiating,” said a presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salaheddine.
Asked whether this time frame was realistic, Salaheddine said: “It is not putting a deadline on the end of the negotiations, it is an expression of the desire to redouble efforts to reach an agreement.”
Asked about Salaheddine’s statement, a senior State Department official traveling with Powell said the announcement of the deadline “was done carefully and with the full consent of the leaders.”
At the meetings here, Powell conveyed an invitation from President Bush to the leaders of the two sides to visit the White House once a comprehensive settlement is signed. He also pledged the United States would help monitor and implement the agreement, and the day before his arrival he suggested many of the sanctions levied against Sudan could be removed.
In two hours of meetings, Powell met separately with Sudan’s first vice president, Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, and the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, John Garang. He then met together with both negotiators, along with peace process coordinators from Sudan’s neighbors.
The parties last month settled security issues, considered the most difficult hurdle, and State Department officials originally had hoped that Powell’s visit would inspire the two sides to reach a final deal. But complex questions involving power sharing, wealth sharing and the status of three disputed geographic regions with a mix of ethnic groups proved too vexing.
In an agreement halting hostilities last year, the two sides decided that once a final deal is signed, the southern part of Sudan will have a six-year period of self-rule before holding a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent.
Powell said that in recent weeks the two parties have made “considerable progress” on wealth-sharing issues, settling disputes on the allocation of revenues and fiscal and monetary policy.
The biggest stumbling block, he said, involves the three disputed territories, especially one known as Abyei. All three areas — the others are the Nuba Mountains and the South Blue Nile — have substantial oil or water resources and are claimed by both the north and south.
In a reflection of the complex history of the territorial disputes, in 1972 Abyei actually had been granted a referendum on whether to join the north or south — but it was never implemented. The discovery of oil reserves in the area since then has only complicated matters.