Sudan’s president says Darfur conflict unlikely to affect talks with SPLA

ADDIS ABABA, Dec 30 (AFP) — Skirmishes pitting government troops against insurgents in Sudan’s western Darfur state will not affect peace talks between Khartoum and the country’s main rebel group in the south, Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir said Tuesday.

Representatives from the Sudanese government, led by Vice President Ali Osman Taha, and from the southern-based rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang, are holding talks in Kenya aimed at ending the country’s two decades of civil war.

“We are on an encouraging road towards peace, and the recent incidents in Darfur have no impact on the process,” Beshir told reporters before leaving Addis Ababa, where he attended Monday’s summit with the leader of Ethiopia and Yemen.

“We are nearing the signing of a peace accord,” he added, referring to the talks between Taha and Garang in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, 80 kilometres (50 miles), northwest of Nairobi.

Press reports in Khartoum on Tuesday quoted Beshir as saying that he expected that a definitive peace deal with the SPLA could be sealed next week.

Khartoum is fighting another rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), in West Darfur State.

On Saturday, the Sudanese army claimed to have repulsed an attack by the SLM Darfur rebels on the Chadian border town of Kulbus on Friday, the fourth assault on the town since mid-October.

The government blames the Darfur rebels for the breakdown of a truce concluded with the help of neighbouring Chad in September.