Arab League chief leaves for Nigeria for Darfur talks

CAIRO, Aug 22, 2004 (Xinhua) — Arab League chief Amr Moussa left here for Nigeria on Sunday to take part in negotiations on the Darfur crisis.

“The Arab League has been invited to take part in the negotiations as an observer,” Moussa told reporters before his departure.

He added that there was an Arab and African agreement to give enough time to settle the crisis.

The talks between the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), two rebel groups in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, and the Sudanese government, are due to be held on Monday in Nigeria.

In July, peace talks between the Sudanese government and the two groups ended without any progress in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The rebel groups took up arms against the government in February last year due to what they claimed that their region was neglected by the successive Sudanese governments.

Darfur is considered by the United Nations the site of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with up to 10,000 people dead and some one million displaced.