Italy urges Garang to sign prompt peace deal in Sudan conflict
ROME, Italy, Sep 16, 2004 (AP) — Italy’s foreign minister urged a Sudanese rebel leader Thursday to settle on a comprehensive peace agreement with the African country’s government and promptly sign the deal.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini met Thursday with John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which is a key party in negotiations to end the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
“Minister Frattini encouraged John Garang to work out, along with the Khartoum government, the last details missing from a comprehensive peace agreement and to proceed without delay to signing it, thereby concluding a process that has lasted two and a half years,” the ministry said in a statement.
The southern conflict broke out in 1983 after the rebels from the mainly animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north.
Separately, Frattini stressed that the Sudanese government has an obligation to guarantee the safety of the population of Darfur, where another conflict has caused a humanitarian crisis.
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On the other hand, a governmental website AGI published the following report on Garang’s visit to Italy
Italian FM encourages Garang to sign final peace deal
ROME, Italy, Sep 16, 2004 (AGI) — The Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, has received the president of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, John Garang, and encouraged him to hurry up to sign a global peace agreement with the Khartoum government which should crown a process began two and a half years ago.
The meeting, the Foreign Minister underlined, took place in the context of contacts which the Italian government is maintaining with main Sudan members, a country in which Italy carries out an important role in supporting peace negotiations.
The meeting was also attended by the undersecretary, Alfredo Mantica.
The visit, upon invitation of Frattini, has made a wide exchange of information and evaluations possible both on peace negotiations between North and South of Sudan and on the severe humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
Frattini encouraged John Garang to define, together with Khartoum, the last details for a global peace agreement and go ahead and sign. On the Italian side it was underlined that the agreement would reflect well on the crisis in Darfur.
Regarding the crisis, Frattini recalled the duty of the Government of Khartoum of guaranteeing security for its population and expressed the need for the international community to continue pushing for the Janjaweed militia to be disarmed and for the judgement of those responsible for the human rights violations.
Frattini and Garang also agreed on the central role of the African Union, supported by the EU and UN, in the solution of the crisis.