Sudan and AU ceasefire commission open talks

KHARTOUM, June 02, 2004 (dpa) — Members from the African Union (A.U.) Ceasefire Commission arrived in Sudan Wednesday to fulfill an A.U. mandate to observe the truce reached between Sudan’s warring parties in Darfur.

Commission members and Sudanese government officials opened discussions in Khartoum ahead of their mission to war-torn Darfur region to effect monitoring of the fragile truce mediated by Chad.

Ambassador Ke Doliy represented the A.U. side while Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Awad el-Kharim Fadulla headed the Sudanese part in the talks scheduled to end Thursday.

Doliy said the visit aimed at implementing modalities the African Union provided with the Sudanese warring parties to establish a ceasefire commission and send observers.

The ceasefire commissioner arrived in Sudan with a first group of an advanced team of observers to go to al-Fashir town, a major city in Darfur, to establish the commissioners’ headquarters there.

In Khartoum, the A.U. will open a liaison office to coordinate the work of the observers and the commission.