Sudan, US intensify contacts to overcome impasse in peace talks

KHARTOUM, Mar 06, 2004 (Sudan Tribune) — Contacts between high-ranking officials in Khartoum and Washington have been going on to push forward the talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), currently held in the Kenyan town of Naivasha.

“I think we will know by the end of this month. By the end of March I hope we’ll have cracked this,” Powell told a US congressional committee earlier this week.

The contacts came as a US attempt to overcome the impasse which the talks were now facing. The US administration had assigned a number of officials to follow the talks.

Powell said the United States is ready to offer its ideas on breaking the final impasse now that the sides have basically ended disputes over two other areas and hammered out a deal on how to share the country’s oil revenues.

The meeting between Abyei’s sons in the SPLM and the US officials focused on the rapprochement of views, particularly on the sharing of Abyei’s oil revenues, an issue which is expected to be dealt with by SPLM leader John Garang and First Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha in today’s meeting.

The SPLM yesterday put forward a proposal for the share of Abyei’s oil revenues.