EU donates cash for Sudan peace talks, pledges aid

ADDIS ABABA, April 20 (Reuters) – The European Union said on Tuesday it had donated 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) to fund talks between Sudan’s government and southern rebels and would provide 500 million euros in aid if a peace deal is signed.

Donors are helping to meet the costs of the peace talks in Kenya, where southern rebels and the government are aiming to reach a comprehensive deal to end their 20-year conflict.

“After decades with on-off dialogues, the negotiations between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA/M) seem to have reached the home stretch,” the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said in a statement issued in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

The Commission said the signing of the peace agreement would also enable it to launch a large-scale, post-conflict recovery programme valued at about 500 million euros, the statement said.

The talks in Kenya do not address a separate civil war which has flared in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the past year, pitting government-backed Arab militias against western rebels.