Sudan Roadmap: NCF distance itself from Mahdi-Mbeki meeting

June 8, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – The opposition National Consensus Forces (NCF) Wednesday has distanced itself from a meeting that between the leader of the National Umma Party (NUP) and the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) on the Roadmap Agreement for peace and dialogue in Sudan.

Following a meeting held last week to discuss the opposition refusal of the Roadmap Agreement, NUP leader Sadiq al-Mahdi said he agreed with the AUHIP chairman Thabo Mbeki to hold a meeting with the Sudan Call forces to discuss the matter.

Al-Mahdi stressed that the roadmap includes positive aspects as it provides to stop war and ensures humanitarian access to civilians in the war affected areas. But, it considers the government controlled conference as basis of the national dialogue and that’s where the rub”.

“The ongoing talks with the African Union mediator do not mean anything for the National Consensus Forces” said NCF chairperson Farouk Abu Issa in a statement issued on Wednesday.

These talks “are between the mediator and the Ingaz regime, seeking a way out for the regime and not the people who are suffering under its rule,” he added.

The NCF is a member of the Sudan Call coalition but says the regime is not credible and points that the popular uprising is the best way to achieve regime change.

The chief mediator form his side, deals in his peace initiative with the forces that signed an agreement with his panel on the national dialogue on 5 September 2014: Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), NUP, Sudan Liberation Movement-Minni Minnawi and (SLM-MM) and the SPLM-North.

The NCF consists of Sudanese Communist Party, Sudanese Congress Party, a faction of the Democratic Unionist Party, some national Arab groups.

(ST)