Sudan’s VP, rebel chief resume talks after two-day break

NAIROBI, Dec 14 (AFP) — Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha and the main rebel chief John Garang on Tuesday in Kenya resumed the last leg of high-level talks aimed at ending Africa’s longest conflict, officials said.

SPLM chairman John Garang and Sudanese Vice president Ali Osman Taha.

The two leaders resumed talks in the Kenyan northwestern town of Naivasha shortly after 11:00 am (0800 GMT), an official in the mediation told AFP.

The talks adjourned on Saturday when Taha travelled to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for consultations on issues standing on the way to a final peace deal.

Khartoum and rebel Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) last month pledged in a written promise to UN Security Council in Nairobi to sign the deal ending 21 years of conflict in southern Sudan by December 31.

“The talks are progressing well,” SPLM/A spokesman Yasser Arman told AFP.

More than two years of intense negotiations have already delivered agreements on key issues such as sharing of power and wealth, but technical details are still up for negotiation, and are crucial to reaching a final peace deal to halt the civil war that has ravaged southern Sudan since 1983.

The issues to be sorted out include a permanent ceasefire and details on how a final peace agreement will be implemented after it is signed.

At least 1.5 million people have been killed and over four million others displaced by the war, which erupted in 1983 when the mainly Christian and animist south took up arms to end domination by the Arabised, Muslim north.