Sudan, opposition groups to resume talks in Egypt
CAIRO, Sept 22 (AFP) — Sudanese opposition groups are to gather in Cairo at the end of this month for a new round of peace talks with the government, the official MENA news agency reported Wednesday.
The negotiations, scheduled to open on September 28 under the auspices of the head of Egyptian intelligence, General Omar Suleiman, are expected to result in a deal between the government and its political opponents in the north.
MENA said the government delegation will be led by first Vice President Ali Osman Taha, who headed the government delegation at talks with southern rebels in Kenya.
Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani, the chairman of the National Democratic Alliance, a grouping of northern and southern opposition groups, will lead the NDA’s team.
The talks will be a sequel to those the held in Cairo at the end of August.
The six-day closed-door talks ended with an agreement on a 13-point agenda, which is expected to form the basis for future talks and includes constitutional issues, general elections and economic policy.
The two sides also agreed to set up four committees to review constitutional, political, economic and financial issues before they are discussed at plenary talks.
Sudanese officials say they hope the talks with exiled northern opposition groups will herald their return to the country and resumption of political activities.
“There will be an agreement on all issues,” Federal Government Minister Nafie Ali Nafie said in Khartoum early this month after returning from negotiations in Egypt with the opposition groups.
Nafie headed the government delegation at the August talks, which Sudan said was part of an effort to negotiate peace with all political opponents in the south, north and west of Sudan, Africa’s largest country.
Established in Eritrea in 1995, the NDA and its armed groups such as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, Sudan Alliance Forces and the Beja Congress, have launched a series of attacks against Sudan from bases on Eritrean soil and had vowed to topple the government of President Omar el-Bashir.