Senegal president says Chad, Sudan to sign deal

March 7, 2008 (PARIS) — Chad and Sudan are to sign peace accords during a summit next week in Dakar, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said Friday.

“Wade told reporters in Paris that Chadian leader Idriss Deby and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had agreed to sign two accords on Wednesday pledging “to stop supporting each other’s opposition on their territory.”

The leaders of Sudan and Chad signed a peace agreement under Libyan auspices in 2006, pledging to deny refuge to each other’s rebel groups. But that accord quickly broke down.

Deby has accused Sudanese authorities of arming rebels who launched an assault on the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, last month. Sudan accuses Chad of giving exile to rebel groups from its war-torn province of Darfur.

The agreements would call for the “disarmament of all armed movements except for the national armies,” Wade said following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A European peacekeeping force deploying in Chad and neighboring Central African Republic in an attempt to stem spillover violence from the conflict in Darfur would be responsible for overseeing the disarmament, Wade said. African Union and U.N. peacekeepers in the region would also assist in the disarmament.

The accords would also aim at “preventing armed opposition groups from crossing the border between Chad and Sudan,” Wade said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, several African leaders and representatives of France and the United States are to travel to the Senegalese capital for the signature of the accords, Wade said.

(AP)