Sudan vows moves underway to bring peace to Darfur

KHARTOUM, Jan 13 (AFP) — A top Sudanese official on Thursday expressed determination to lay the ground for peace in the Darfur region, as it emerged that talks would resume in just over a fortnight.

“The next few weeks will witness rounds (of talks), decisions and arrangements for extinguishing the fire of the war in Darfur and achieving unity of the national rank through the Cairo talks,” said Vice President Ali Osman Taha.

“We are determined to make good our pledge of achieving peace everywhere in the Sudan and for every Sudanese,” he said.

After returning from signing a peace deal to end Africa’s longest running civil war in southern Sudan, President Omar al-Beshir named Taha to take charge of the negotiations with the Darfur rebel movements.

Talks have taken place in the Nigerian capital Abuja between the Khartoum government and rebels in the hope of ending the Darfur conflict, which has claimed the lives of 70,000 people and displaced 1.5 million others.

Meanwhile, the government has also been engaged in dialogue in Cairo with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella grouping of more than a dozen mainly northern political organizations.

Separately, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said in Cairo that the next session of talks between Khartoum and the Darfur rebels would take place in the first week of February.

The warring parties in Darfur signed a ceasefire agreement in April 2004 in Chad and a security protocol later in the year in Abuja, but each side accuses the other of persistently violating the truce.