Sudan peace talks extended to May 23 – mediator

NAIROBI, May 18 (Reuters) – Talks aimed at ending 21 years of civil war in Sudan have been extended until May 23 to allow the government and southern rebels time to resolve two issues blocking a peace accord, mediators said on Tuesday.

Sudan First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) leader John Garang have agreed an outline solution to two key issues — power-sharing and the status of the disputed areas Southern Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains.

But they have yet to finetune the details, mediators said.

“The two parties have asked that we give them until May 23 to finalise the outstanding issues,” chief mediator Lazarus Sumbeiywo of the Kenya-hosted talks said.

Taha and Garang had previously expected to complete their discussions by mid-May, Sumbeiywo said, adding that the new date was not a hard deadline.

“The parties will continue talking until they come up with an agreement,” he told Reuters.

Africa’s longest civil war pits the Islamic, Arabic-speaking government in Khartoum against the mainly animist and Christian rebels fighting for greater autonomy for the south.

The conflict, which has been complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology, has uprooted four million people and killed two million more, mainly through war-induced famine and disease.

The Kenya talks do not cover a separate conflict which has raged for more than a year in the western region of Darfur, creating what the United Nations says is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.