AU envoy says Darfur peace talks are to remain in Libya

November 15, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The African Union envoy, Salim Ahmed Salim, today has stated that Darfur peace talks will remain in Libya denying implicitly what a United Nations official said in this respect to Reueters.

Salim Ahmed Salim told the reporters Thursday in Khartoum that the choice of the venue is determined jointly by the AU and UN chiefs adding that there is no reason to change it from Sirte.

Darfur main rebel groups who rejected to participate in the ongoing peace process expressed their opposition to Libya as venue for the talks with the Sudanese government to end the four-year conflict in western Sudan.

The deputy chief of the UN mission in Sudan and the chief U.N. negotiator for the talks, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, told Reuters: “If it comes to it that all sides are against the venue, then we are not going to sacrifice the talks for the venue.”

The UN envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, told the BBC that only the AU-UN joint mediation is in charge of these negotiations and Libya is just the host country. He also said the decision of the venue was taken by the mediators, the government and the rebels.

However all the rebel groups said they had not been consulted by the mediators on this decision. But the mediation says their agreed in Arusha to select one of the countries of the regional initiatives: Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, and Libya.

Salim didn’t exclude to hold besides Sirte some meetings outside Libya but he reaffirmed that the “substance- the main fact of the negotiations- is expected to be in Sirte”.

The AU envoy met in Khartoum with Minni Minawi, the Senior Assistant to the President, and the former rebel leader who signed the Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government in May 2006, to brief him on the Sirte process.

(ST)