Khartoum blames Darfur rebels for collapse of west Sudan peace talks

KHARTOUM, Dec 24 (AFP) — Khartoum blamed the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement for the collapse of peace talks aimed at ending the war in the western Darfur region, one day after the guerrilla group said it had killed 84 government soldiers in fierce fighting.

The Sudanese government holds the outlaws fully responsible for the failure of the recent Ndjamena negotiations … for their insistence on violating the Abeche agreement,” said a statement from the foreign ministry faxed to AFP.

It is therefore “fully responsible for the suffering of the people,” in the troubled Darfur region, it added.

Peace talks brokered by Chad in Ndjamena between Khartoum and the SLM broke down last week, with Chadian Communications Minister Abdramane Moussa blaming the rebels for setting unacceptable terms.

The latest round of talks had been aimed at restoring peace in Darfur by enforcing a ceasefire signed in September in Abeche, Chad.

On Tuesday, SLM leader Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur told AFP in Cairo that his fighters had quashed a massive offensive launched by government forces on rebel positions, and killed 84 soldiers.

“Government troops and militias launched a large-scale violent offensive against our forces in the eastern Kabkabiya region in north Darfur,” he said by telephone.

“The Sudanese army attacked our positions with tanks and armoured vehicles, backed by Antonov planes,” he said.

But SLM fighters “inflicted heavy losses … and killed 84 enemy soldiers,” he said, adding that the rebels had lost no one.

During the battle, the SLM “destroyed eight armoured vehicles and six troop carriers,” Nur said.

Khartoum remains willing to reach a peaceful settlement to the conflict, but accused the “outlaws” of hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid to the region, said the statement from the foreign ministry.

The clashes in Darfur, a mainly arid semi-desert part of Africa’s biggest country, have claimed some 3,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people since February.

The Sudanese government is also involved in peace talks with southern-based rebels who have been fighting Khartoum for 20 years.

Delegates at those talks, currently under way in Kenya, last week reached a rough agreement on sharing the proceeds from the country’s 300,000 daily barrels of oil, produced in the south.

The United States, which last week decried the breakdown of the Darfur talks, has said it hopes a peace pact can be reached in Sudan’s wider war between the south and Khartoum by year’s end.

The broader conflict in Sudan has claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced an estimated four million people since it broke out in 1983.