Rebels seek Obasanjo’s intervention to kickstart talks on Sudan’s Darfur

ABUJA, Sept 9 (AFP) — African Union-sponsored talks on the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region resumed Thursday in Abuja, with rebel leaders calling for the talks’ host, Nigeria, to intervene to kickstart the parley.

The talks taking place in the Nigerian capital are aimed at resolving the Darfur crisis which has killed some 50,000 people and forced another 1.4 million to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

But in three weeks, the talks have made little headway.

“We want President Olusegun Obasanjo to intervene so that we can make progress,” spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) Abdelhafiz Mustafa Musa told AFP just before the beginning of a new plenary session.

“When the issue gets to this point, I think it is important for President Obasanjo as host and chairman of AU to come in,” he added.

The AU-brokered peace talks between the government of Sudan and the two rebel groups – the SLM and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) – stalled Wednesday when the Khartoum government rejected a draft protocol on the key issues of security and disarmament.

“This draft, the way it had been prepared, contradicts obligations that we have already undertaken,” Sudan’s deputy foreign affairs minister Najeib Abdelwahab said calling on the African mediators to draft another protocol.

The rebel groups also want the mediators to make amendments in the draft.

An AU official told AFP Obasanjo is “very likely” to meet the two opposing sides Thursday afternoon to try to move the talks forward.

The Nigerian leader has met previously with the two sides since the start of the talks on August 23.

Last week, the talks were deadlocked over how to solve the humanitarian problem in the crisis-ravaged Darfur region. An accord on the issue was finally struck following pressure from the AU and Nigerian mediators.