Sudanese vice president briefs Mubarak on peace deal

CAIRO, June 10 (AFP) — Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha on Thursday here briefed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the peace deal between his government and rebels in southern Sudan, sources said.

There was no official comment from Mubarak nor Taha, whose visit to Cairo is part of a tour to brief Arab leaders about the deal that recommits the government and rebels to earlier accords to end 21 years of civil war.

He met late Wednesday with Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, who said that they had discussed the League’s future role in Sudan, especially in the “reconstruction and development of southern Sudan.”

Earlier, Taha met with exiled members of his country’s main opposition group, the National Democratic Alliance.

They agreed to “pursue dialogue with a view to examining the mechanisms for a comprehensive political solution to bring about peace.”

Taha and Sudanese People’s Liberation Army leader John Garang on Saturday signed a declaration committing themselves to peace protocols struck over the past two years and officially launched a final round of talks aimed at ending the war.

The war, in which some 1.5 million people have been killed, essentially pitted Islamic, Arabised governments in Khartoum against a south where traditional religions and Christianity are practised.

A ceasefire has been in force since October 2002.

Khartoum’s Al-Anbaa daily said Taha would travel on to Tripoli for talks with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.