Sudan’s Beshir invites opponents to Nairobi peace deal ceremony
KHARTOUM, Jan 6 (AFP) — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has invited his political opponents to attend the signing ceremony of a peace deal to end Africa’s longest-running conflict, the state-run SUNA agency reported Thursday.
The invitation was extended to the leadership of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella grouping of more than a dozen mainly northern political organizations.
Khartoum and the main southern rebel group, the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement will on Sunday sign a final peace agreement to end the country’s 21-year civil war, which has claimed some 1.5 million lives.
Sudanese presidential emissary Abdul Basit Sabdarat personally handed the invitation to NDA leader and chairman of the opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani in Cairo, Egypt, SUNA said.
“The President wants all Sudanese political forces to take part in this historic event which will be a springboard for development and prosperity,” said Sabdarat, after delivering the message.
The NDA’s membership includes the SPLM and groups such as the Umma Party of Sadiq al-Mahdi, whose democratically-elected government Beshir toppled in a bloodless coup in 1989.
Khartoum held two rounds of negotiations with the NDA last year in the Egyptian capital, which it hopes will herald the return to Sudan of the country’s largest exiled political opposition bloc.
Kamal Ibaid, who accompanied Sabdarat to Cairo, said the government and the NDA had managed to iron out lingering differences over the past few weeks and predicted that the two sides would meet soon for a new round of talks.
He added that the government was prepared to reach agreement with the NDA, using agreements with the SPLM as a model for a deal.
Under the terms of a protocol on power-sharing agreed to by the government and the SPLM, 52 percent of executive positions would be given to the ruling National Congress party, 28 percent for the SPLM, six percent for other southern groups and 14 percent for northern political parties.
The arrangement will stay in place until the drafting of a new constitution and the convening of general elections during the second half of a six-year interim period due to begin six months after a final peace deal is signed.