US presses Sudanese to complete peace deal by year’s end
WASHINGTON, Oct 28 (AFP) — US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his top diplomat for Africa on Tuesday urged Sudan’s warring parties to hold firm to a commitment to reach a final peace agreement by the end of this year.
“Time is of the essence for the war-weary people of Sudan,” Powell said in a opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times newspaper. “They have an opportunity for peace.
“This is an opportunity that must not be lost,” he said, recalling his visit to peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya last week at which Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang pledged to end Africa’s longest civil war by December 31.
To encourage them, Powell reiterated US President George W. Bush’s invitation for Garang and Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to the White House after a deal is reached.
And, he reminded Khartoum that once an agreement was forged, Washington “will begin normalizing our bilateral relations with the Sudanese government.”
Sudan is now designated by the State Department as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and is subject to penalties under that and five other US sanctions regimes.
Powell said last week that the United States would review all of those sanctions as incentive for Khartoum to make peace with the SPLA.
Meanwhile, Walter Kansteiner, the outgoing assistant secretary of state for African affairs who is stepping down to return to private life, said the two sides were “in striking distance of a peace deal.”
“I am optimistic,” he told reporters on his final day in office. “I think they can do it. Don’t let the momentum die … stay the course and get it down. ”
Sudan’s war erupted in 1983 when Garang’s SPLA took up arms against Khartoum to end domination of the mainly Christian and animist south by the Arabised, Muslim north.
More than 1.5 million people have been killed and more than four million people displaced in the conflict.
The last round of talks in Naivasha adjourned on Sunday after Powell’s visit on October 22 for a break over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with both sides acknowledging progress.
The next round is to resume on November 30 with an eye toward reaching agreement on the status of the three central regions claimed by both sides — Southern Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and Abyei — and on how to share power and wealth, notably Sudan’s oil reserves.
Previous rounds of negotiations have already produced crucial agreements on a six-year transitional period of self-rule for the south, followed by an internationally supervised referendum, and on the security arrangements to be put in place during this period.