Darfur groups form unified negotiating team
November 26, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Armed groups from Darfur, under the banner of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF), have agreed to form a unified negotiating delegation ahead of the peace talks with the transitional government next December.
The SRF includes four groups from Darfur region: the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM), the Sudan Liberation Forces Alliance (SLFA), and the Sudan Liberation Movement-Transitional Council (SLM-TC).
In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Tuesday, the four groups said that the Darfur negotiating track aims to reach a solution to the problem of Darfur from a national perspective to complements the other tracks of the Two Areas and eastern Sudan, pointing that they will work in coordination with all actors in the peace process.
“The parties to the Darfur track agreed to form a unified negotiating delegation and to unify their negotiating position,” further said the joint statement issued by Mohamed Zakaria the Spokesman of Darfur track.
Also, they decided to appoint a spokesperson, agreed on direct channels of communication, unified administrative arrangements, to strengthen coordination with other parties to the tracks, and to promote direct communication between them and the host country, mediation, facilitators and the transitional government; further reads the statement.
The direct talks will resume on 11 December in Juba instead of 21 November.
To explain the postponement, the South Sudanese mediator announced on 19 November “Opposition groups have workshops in different areas. Some of them have workshops in Addis Ababa”.
Darfur groups said they agreed “in principle” on Juba as the venue of the talks and stressed on the need for a resolution from Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union, backed by the UN Security Council, on the venue and the mediation.
“To ensure the role of the regional and international community in the peacemaking, peacebuilding and for the reconstruction of what was ravaged by the war, and as a guarantor of the peace agreement,” stressed the statement.
The armed groups, further, said they will approach the Juba government to find out what has been achieved about the SPC decision on the peace process.
The head of the Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan last Thursday said they do not want a foreign mediation adding that Juba has provided the venue but Sudanese can manage the process by themselves.
Sudan Tribune learnt that the SRF leaders during their recent presence in Addis Ababa had been informed that the SPC did not receive a request from the Sudanese government to issue a decision on the peace process.
The four groups further said they decided to ask the South Sudanese government “to clarify the reasons for postponing the third round, which was scheduled to resume on the twenty-first of November this month.”
(ST)