Sudan peace talks deadlocked over sharing of oil revenue: mediation

NAIROBI, Dec 19 (AFP) — Talks in Kenya between Sudan’s vice president and main rebel leader aimed at clinching a deal to end 20 years of civil conflict were deadlocked Friday over the sharing of oil wealth, a mediation official said.

Sudan currently produces around 300,000 barrels of oil a day which accounts for 43 percent of government revenue, accrording to the energy and mines ministry.

“The talks are kind of deadlocked over the percentage the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) should take,” an official from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development told AFP by phone, the day the current round was scheduled to end.

“There is no movement on the percentages of sharing oil” revenue, an SPLA source said.

Both the Khartoum and the SPLA have in recent months said they were confident that a comprehensive peace accord could be finalised by the end of this year.

The delegations at the talks are being led by Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang.

As well as wealth-sharing, the current round’s agenda also covers power-sharing and the status of three disputed regions in central Sudan.

Chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan army general, told AFP on Friday that the current round, slated to wrap up Friday, “might well push on until the principals decide to take a break.”

“They are trying very hard to reach an agreement on wealth sharing,” he said by phone from the talks’ venue in Naivasha, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi.

Previous rounds of negotiations have clinched deals on a six-year period of autonomy for the south, to be followed by a referendum, and on transitional security arrangements.

Some 1.5 million people have been killed in Sudan since civil war flared up again in 1983, when rebels in the mainly black African south rose up against Khartoum’s hardline Islamic Arab government.