Libya will bring rebel leaders to Darfur peace talks – UN’s Ban
September 8, 2007 (SIRTE, Libya) — Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said on Saturday he will gather as many Darfur rebel groups as possible for peace talks with Khartoum due to be held in Libya next month, announced U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon .
“I’m very encouraged by his strong support for talks in Libya,” Ban said after his half-hour meeting with Kadhafi. Ban added “He said he would do all to bring leaders of movements” to talks planned for October 27 in Libya between the Sudanese government and rebel groups.
Ban further said that he and Kadhafi agreed that the meeting should seek “durable and enduring peace and security in Darfur” and full implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Ban was speaking after meeting Gaddafi near the Libyan town of Sirte on the last leg of a three-country African tour aimed at paving the way for a Darfur settlement.
“(Gaddafi) said he will do all to bring all the leaders of the movements to participate in the meeting,” Ban said. “I am very grateful for his flexibility and willingness to provide necessary assistance and hospitality.”
Ban said that in a “constructive and fruitful” meeting lasting almost an hour and a half he had agreed with Gaddafi that the United Nations, the African Union and Libya should work closely on the run-up to the talks.
He proposed that U.N. special envoy Jan Eliasson, who will mediate the negotiations alongside his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim, and Libya’s Africa minister, Ali Treiki, should serve on a high level support team.
Earlier the UN chief told journalists on his plane en route to Libya that the goal of his talks with Kadhafi was to ensure the success of the new round of Darfur peace negotiations in Libya late next month.
“First and foremost, we want to make the meeting a success. We would like it to be a final phase of peace negotiations,” Ban said.
He added that the peace effort needed the cooperation of all regional players, naming Egypt, Eritrea and Chad in addition to Libya.
The Ban-Kadhafi meeting took place in the coastal city of Sirte, Kadhafi’s hometown, about 500 kilometres (300 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
Some rebel leaders have expressed disappointment with Ban’s visit to Sudan and said they had low expectations for the peace talks. One, Paris-based Abdel Wahid Mohamed el-Nur, founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement, has said he will not attend.
Ban dodged questions on whether or how Gaddafi would persuade Nur, who enjoys major support in Darfur refugee camps included one visited by the U.N. leader on Wednesday, to come.
But he has said in the past week it would be in Nur’s interests to take part.
LIBYA SAYS AFFECTED BY DARFUR CRISIS
Ban was met at Sirte airport by Libya’s minister for African affairs, Ali Triki, who said that his country was also affected by the insecurity in Darfur.
“We are neighbours with Sudan, and we have more than three quarters of a million Darfurians working in Libya,” Triki said.
“So the security of Darfur is very important for us, and we will work hard for success in achieving peace.”
U.N. officials have said that Libya won out as the venue over Tanzania and other nations that had offered to host the talks because it had the best chance of bringing the maximum number of rebel groups together.
Gaddafi promotes African solutions to African problems. He has sought to broker peace between feuding neighbours Chad and Sudan, which he regards as his diplomatic turf, and has in the past denounced outside involvement in peacekeeping in Africa.
The North African state has already hosted two meetings of the groups this year aimed at unifying their strategy before they negotiate with Khartoum. The United Nations currently considers about eight rebel groups to be major players.
Ban met Gaddafi in a large green and yellow tent patterned with palm trees and camels in a sealed-off compound just outside the coastal town of Sirte, the area where the Libyan leader was born.
Gaddafi, who has led Libya for 38 years, was wearing a brown shirt sporting green prints of the African continent.
(ST/agencies)