Norway optimistic about peace deal in Sudan talks

NAIROBI, Oct 23 (AFP) — Norway is optimistic a peace deal on Sudan will be reached by end of the year or early 2004, Norwegian former prime minister Thorbjon Jagland said here on Friday.

“We are optimistic and hope that an agreement in the Sudan peace talks can be reached by the end of the year or early next year,” Jagland told a press conference at the end of a three-day official visit to Kenya.

Jagland, who led a delegation of the Norwegian parliament’s foreign affairs standing committee to Kenya to assess the government’s progress in reforms, was also briefed on progress in Sudan peace talks by mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo,

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that Sudan’s foes had pledged to sign a final peace accord by the end of the year. But officials from both sides later denied this, saying that no specific date had been set.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang are currently meeting in the Kenyan town of Naivasha for the last round of talks, aimed at ending the 20-year-old conflict, which has killed more than 1.5 million people and displaced four million others.

This final round of the talks at the Kenyan Rift Valley town of Naivasha, focuses on wealth- and power-sharing and three disputed regions — Southern Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and Abyei.