Darfur peace talks hinge on Obasanjo decision

ABUJA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Peace talks on Sudan’s troubled Darfur region were held up on Tuesday as mediators from the African Union prepared to brief the organisation’s chairman on the stalemate between rebels and the Sudanese government.

Delegates met briefly, to be told by mediators they would brief the AU chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, later in the day on details of the talks so far, after which he would decide if he would meet representatives of the two sides.

“The mediators briefed us they are going to see the president, and we will know what will happen after the meeting, whether we will meet today or not,” said Abdulhafiz Musa Mustapha, a spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement rebels.

The talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja began three weeks ago but have become bogged down in squabbling over security issues and disarmament, with mutual accusations of ceasefire violations.

Negotiations were suspended last Friday to allow Obasanjo time after returning from a foreign trip to be briefed on the stalemate, ahead of a final effort to reach a deal between the opposing sides.

The Darfur rebels, who took up arms against the government in February 2003 after years of low-intensity fighting between Arab nomads and African farmers in the arid western Sudanese province, say they want a political solution to the conflict.

They accuse Khartoum of arming Arab Janjaweed militias who have looted and torched African villages, a charge the government denies. It says the Janjaweed are outlaws.

More than a million Darfuris have fled their homes to escape attacks by the Janjaweed. The United Nations, which has called the crisis in Darfur the world’s worst, estimates up to 50,000 people have been killed in the conflict.