Sudan peace agreement to be signed next week: Sudan’s FM
NAIROBI, May 6, 2004 (Xinhua) — The Sudanese government and the main southern rebel group Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) will sign a final peace agreement next week, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail disclosed here Thursday.
“The parties (the government and rebels) have reached agreement on key outstanding issues of power sharing in Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile and the status of capital, and the final agreement will be signed in the next few days, that I mean next week,” Ismail told reporters in Kenya’s capital Nairobi when attending a regional foreign ministers meeting on Somalia.
“The agreement on the remaining issues (share of each side in a national parliament and government, participation of other political parties, and power sharing in Southern Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains) will be signed under power and wealth sharing agreement and this together with other agreements will be signed together in a final agreement which is within days,” Ismail said.
Sources close to the talks told Xinhua that the capital would remain under Islamic law but non-Muslims would be exempt from Islamic punishment.
According to the source, under the power sharing structure, SPLA leader John Garang would be first vice-president to President Omar al-Bashir and a second vice-president will be appointed by the ruling National Congress Party.
The Sudanese civil war started in 1983 when the SPLA took up arms fighting for self-determination in the southern part of the country, which has left some 2 million people dead, mostly through war-induced famine and disease.
The Sudanese government and the SPLA began peace talks in March 1994 in Kenya, under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, a seven-member regional group in east Africa, consisting of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia and the Sudan.
During this round of talks, expected to be the last one, the parties have been negotiating in the Kenyan town Naivasha since February this year, aimed at ending the longest civil war on the African continent.
However, the issue of Islamic law in the Sudanese capital has been remaining the thorn issue blocking the signing of the final deal.