Government, armed groups start Sudan strategic meeting
March 18, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA/KHARTOUM) – Sudanese government, armed groups in Sudan’s Two Areas and Darfur Friday kicked off a Strategic Consultations Meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
AUHIP chief Thabo Mbeki who just concluded a visit to Khartoum urged the participants before to start talks in separate tracks, to innovate their approach and develop ideas on how to overcome differences that led to the failure of previous meetings.
Mbeki said the purpose of these consultations which include the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) is to reach a common ground for a comprehensive political process on democratic reforms in Sudan. He also spoke about his meeting with some opposition groups that he met for the first time during his visit to Khartoum.
The chief mediator also held a meeting with the European Union, U.S, Germany and Norway envoys to brief them on his plans and the meetings he held in Khartoum with the Sudanese government and opposition groups.
The parties will hold separate discussions on Darfur region involving a government delegation led by Amin Hassan Omer and rebel delegations from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement of Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM). Gibril Ibrahim and Minnawi lead their respective delegations.
For the track on the conflict in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, the government team is led by Presidential Adviser Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid while SPLM-N delegation is led by it Secretary General Yasir Arman.
In the previous rounds of negotiations, the mediation sought to bring the parties to sign a cessation of hostilities agreement which was seen as a step before the signing of a Declaration of Principles, defining the agenda of the peace talks.
However, the chief mediator in his remarks to the participants stressed that the agenda of this meeting will focus on the strategic issues without the details that the parties tackled during the previous meeting. They will also discuss ways to connect the cessation of hostilities and the humanitarian access with the issues of the national dialogue in Sudan, he underlined.
In statements to the official news agency SUNA, the head of the government delegation for peace talks with the SPLM-N stressed that the most important is to stop war, adding it will lead to the solution of all other issues including the humanitarian access.
The Sudanese presidential assistant was alluding to the recent call by the SPLM-N chief negotiator to separate the discussions on the humanitarian aid from the political process.
During an informal meeting held in Ethiopia last February about Darfur conflict, the government and rebel delegations said the discussions were “fruitful”.
JEM and SLM-MM demand to open the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur for talks particularly on issues related to the compensations, land ownership, justice and security arrangements.
(ST)