Sudanese VP heads to Nairobi Monday for final round of peace talks

KHARTOUM, Dec 4 (AFP) — Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha will travel to Kenya on Monday for a new round of peace talks with John Garang, leader of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said.

The two leaders agreed to meet five days earlier than
planned in response to a request by Norway during the United Nations Security Council meeting in November in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

During the special session, Taha and Garang committed to signing a final peace deal by the end of this year.

Lower-level representatives of Sudan’s government and the SPLM resumed talks in Kenya on November 26 to hammer out lingering differences on the details of a broad agreement they signed earlier this year.

Taha and Garang are due to go head to head Monday in a bid to reach the final deal, which would end Africa’s longest-running conflict, which has claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives in more than 20 years of war.