Sudan optimistic of reaching Darfur peace deal by April
Mar 17, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Sudan’s foreign minister said Friday he was optimistic a peace deal with rebels can be reached by next month to end the three-year conflict in the Darfur region.
Sudanese Foreign Affairs Minister Lam Akol spoke on the sidelines of an eastern Africa regional group meeting in Nairobi, where leaders are scheduled to discuss Darfur on Monday.
“We are optimistic that in the next weeks we expect a breakthrough in the peace talks in Abuja,” Akol said, referring to ongoing African Union-mediated talks in the Nigerian capital.
African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit told foreign ministers at the meeting of the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development that a peace deal was within grasp by the end of April.
“All efforts should be geared toward achieving that goal,” Djinnit said.
Talks in Abuja, between Sudanese government and Darfur rebel officials slowed last year because of differences within a key Darfur rebel group.
Negotiations to resolve the Darfur conflict, which has forced more than two million from their homes and killed tens of thousands, revolve around how to share political power, economic resources and deal with the region’s militias.
“Now it is a matter of mastering the political will to decide what compromises to make,” Akol said.
Despite a cease-fire deal signed in Chad in April 2004 and the Abuja negotiations, fighting has continued.
The cash-strapped African Union currently has around 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, a desert-like region the size of France, but expects to hand over to the U.N. by September because of its financial and logistical limitations. Sudan opposes U.N. peacekeepers.
The ministers and other officials from Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Somalia — the countries that make up the Intergovernmental Authority on Development — were preparing the agenda and other details on Friday for the heads of state meeting.
The peace deal that ended the conflict in southern Sudan and the troubles facing Somalia’s transitional government are some of the other issues the leaders will discuss.
Akol urged the international community not to link funds aimed at reconstruction in war-shattered southern Sudan to the resolution of the Darfur conflict. He also called on donors to waive the US$27 billion (A22.4 billion) in debts the country owes to help its economic recovery.
Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in the Darfur region erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect.
The central government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. The central government denies backing the Janjaweed.
(ST/AP)