High-level Sudan talks to start earlier than scheduled: mediator

NAIROBI, Nov 20 (AFP) — High-level talks between Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the main rebel leader John Garang will start five days earlier than scheduled in a bid to sign a final peace deal before the year’s end, mediators said on Saturday.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha, left, holds hands with Sudan People’s Liberation Movement leader John Garang, right, Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 during the U.N Security Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP).

“The two leaders, who were expected to resume talks on December 11, have now decided to push forward the date to December 6,” Chief mediator Lazaro Sumbeiywo told AFP by telephone on Saturday.

“They will arrive in Kenya on December 5 and start talks the following day,” Sumbeiywo said.

Talks between low-level delegates, which adjourned on October 31, will resume on November 26.

On Friday, Taha, the Khartoum delegation leader, and Garang of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army rebel group, committed themselves in writing before the UN Security Council meeting in Nairobi that they would sign a peace deal before December 31.

The Sudan peace talks have been held in Kenya for two years, in an effort to end the war, which began in 1983 when the mainly Christian and animist south took up arm against the Islamic regime in Khartoum, and has claimed some 1.5 million lives and displaced at least four million others.