Military campaign in South Kordofan coming to end: SAF

January 29 , 2014 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese Armed Force (SAF) has declared that military operations in the border state of South Kordofan are coming to an end

SAF’s inspector general, Mohamed Graham Omer, said in a meeting at South Kordofan’s legislative council on Wednesday that the Sudanese army has largely achieved its objectives, calling on political forces to unify ranks in order to bring peace to the state.

Last December, the Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, vowed to end Sudan’s rebellions in 2014 saying that military campaign carried out in South Kordofan will be followed by another one in the Darfur region.

Graham pointed that plans to secure the state were perfectly executed though he acknowledged that ongoing conflict in South Sudan has negative impacts on Sudan’s bordering states, calling for taking the necessary precautionary measures to protect the borders and provide humanitarian assistance to the needy population.

The governor of South Kordofan state, Adam al-Faki, announced on his end that rebels control only three out of the state’s seventeen localities.

Al-Faki pointed to his government’s efforts to create an environment conducive for achieving peace and reconstruction, saying that large number of the state’s sons in the rebel groups wish to join the peace process.

Meanwhile, the speaker of Sudan’s parliament, Al-Fatih Izz Al-Deen, stressed that president Bashir called in his recent speech for forming an emergency committee to look into South Kordofan’s issues and establishing development fund for the state while urging sons of the state to engage in institutional dialogue on the state’s issues.

The Blue Nile and South Kordofan’s conflict erupted months apart from each other in 2011 when Sudan attempted to forcibly disarm SPLM-N fighters it accuses of being backed by their brother-in-arms in the South Sudanese army.

The two parties failed to continue peace talks to reach a negotiated settlement. The difference over the agenda of the negotiations and the humanitarian crisis hamper the efforts of the African Union (AU) mediation to bring the two parties to the negotiating table.

The first round of talks between the SPLM-N and the Sudanese government in April 2013 at the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa adjourned without success in bridging the wide gap between the two sides.

(ST)