Sudan Govt/SPLA clear hurdles to peace deal
(Adds U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s reaction)
By William Maclean
NAIROBI, May 25 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and southern rebels have resolved key disputes in peace talks, removing hurdles blocking a comprehensive deal to end Africa’s longest-running civil war, host Kenya said on Tuesday.
“A major breakthrough…has been achieved,” a Kenyan foreign ministry statement said, adding the Khartoum government and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) planned to sign three protocols at a 1000 GMT ceremony on Wednesday near Nairobi.
“The signing of the Protocols represents a major step towards the achievement of a final comprehensive political settlement to the conflict,” the statement said.
The agreements will not cover another war that has raged for over a year in Sudan’s Darfur region, creating what the United Nations says is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Kenyan statement said the Khartoum government and SPLA had settled the status of three disputed areas — the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyei — and agreed how to share power once the 21-year-old conflict comes to an end.
The signings, to be followed at some stage by a final agreement on a ceasefire and implementation arrangements, will clear the way for the inking of a much-delayed peace deal to end a war that has killed an estimated two million people, mainly through famine and disease.
In Addis Ababa, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said he expected the protocols would be signed at the talks venue in Naivasha town on Wednesday or shortly thereafter.
“We think they have reached agreement,” Ismail told reporters during a visit to Ethiopia.
“Tomorrow will be the final day and they will sign the final agreement on the three outstanding issues…which open the door for the preparation of the final text of the agreement.”
The war began in 1983 and broadly pits the SPLA in the mainly Christian and animist south against the northern Islamic government. The conflict has been complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and religion.
DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE
This round of peace talks began in June 2002. The sides have already signed deals on splitting state and religion, forming a postwar army, letting the south hold a referendum on independence after an interim period and sharing oil revenues when the war ends.
The Kenyan statement said invitees to the signing included U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for Africa Charles Snyder, Norwegian International Development Minister Hilda Johnstone and African Union Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare.
To step up pressure at the talks, Snyder met top negotiators First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and SPLA leader John Garang in April and again earlier this month in Kenya.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was pleased with the progress made so far at the talks.
“We are hopeful and optimistic that there might be some signings tomorrow,” he said at a news conference with Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel. “I am quite optimistic.”
The United States announced earlier this month that it had removed Sudan from a blacklist of countries deemed uncooperative in its war on terrorism.
But Washington said U.S. sanctions would remain in place because Khartoum has not severed all links with anti-Israel groups such as Hamas.
Washington hopes a deal will hand it a success story for U.S. diplomacy and transform relations with a country of 30 million that earns more than $2 billion a year from its growing oil output of about 300,000 barrels a day.
A wealth sharing deal signed in January splits oil revenues equally during a six-year transition period and maps out a monetary system allowing for Islamic banking in the north and a Western-style banking system in the south.
The combatants have also agreed on security arrangements including separate armies with integrated forces in strategic parts of the vast country.