Sudan says south peace deal not applicable to west
ABU DHABI, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Sudan’s foreign minister dismissed on Saturday suggestions by a U.S. official that a peace deal taking shape between the government and southern rebels could help resolve another war in the west.
“The model of the agreement which the central government is negotiating with southerners cannot be repeated with rebels in the west of Sudan because the agreement contains the right of self-determination and we cannot negotiate this right with rebels in the west,” the minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said.
“As for distribution of wealth, the central government accepts any agreement concerning this issue with rebels in the west of Sudan,” he told reporters during a visit to Abu Dhabi emirate in the United Arab Emirates.
The conflict areas in the west hold no major deposits of oil, unlike the south which is home to Sudan’s main oilfields.
A senior U.S. State Department official said on Friday that a speedy peace deal over southern Sudan could help resolve the separate conflict between rebel and government forces in the western Darfur region.
The official, who declined to be identified, said the deal taking shape between Khartoum and southern rebels was “transferable onto this western problem” when it came to matters of regional authority and wealth sharing.
Sudan’s government and southern rebels signed a deal on wealth-sharing this week that is viewed as a key step toward resolving the 20-year conflict pitting the Islamist government against rebels in the mainly animist or Christian south.
Power-sharing and the status of three contested areas remained to be solved in this dispute, in which an estimated two million people have died, mostly from hunger and disease.
Ismail said a peace deal could be signed by the end of January. “If there is a delay, it will be one of days or weeks and not months,” he said.
The United States has played a leading role in exerting pressure on both sides in Sudan to reach an agreement, hoping to transform relations with a country it lists as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and where crude oil production is rising.
Ismail said Sudan would play an important role in the fight against terrorism. “There cannot be success in fighting terrorism in Africa if Sudan is not stable,” he said.
Even as the government and rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army have moved toward a peace deal over the south, the conflict in the western region has escalated, with rebels there accusing the government of air raids and of arming Arab militias to attack African tribes in the region.