UN envoy says peace in south Sudan inevitable

KHARTOUM, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government and southern rebels have crossed the last bridge in efforts to end 21 years of war and peace is now inevitable, U.N. envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk said on Sunday.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth (R) talks with Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha (L) as U.N. envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk (C) during a documents signing ceremony between a Sudanese government official and a negotiator from the rebel SPLM in Nairobi, November 19, 2004.

Khartoum and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) signed a pledge in front of the U.N. Security Council in Nairobi on Thursday promising to end by Dec. 31 the war which has killed some two million people.

“It all points in the direction of: peace is irreversible, peace is unavoidable, now the last bridge has been crossed,” Pronk told reporters in Khartoum.

The SPLA, from the mainly Christian and animist south, and the Islamist Sudanese government have made substantial progress towards a peace deal. But dates by which the sides have promised to reach a final deal have repeatedly slipped.

The SPLA and Khartoum promised U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2003 they would reach a deal by the end of that year. Khartoum said in May this year it expected a deal by August.

The Security Council on Thursday adopted a resolution promising political and economic support once Sudan ended the southern civil war and a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur, which started in early 2003.

Some analysts say the Darfur conflict, which has created what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has slowed the progress towards a peace deal in the south.