Obasanjo meets Sudan’s VP over Darfur crisis

ABUJA, Feb 28 (AFP) — African Union (AU) chairman, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, met here on Monday Sudan’s first vice president Ali Taha over the bloody crisis in Darfur region.

The meeting is a “follow-up to the meeting that Obasanjo had with President Omar al-Beshir on February 16 at Abuja”, the Nigerian capital, said presidential spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo.

Taha’s delegation presented to Obasanjo a report of the National Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, prepared by the government in Khartoum, Oyo said.

Details of the report were not disclosed.

Obasanjo and the delegation “discussed ways of adjudication, criminal justice and reconciliation in Darfur,” she stated.

The meeting on Monday is one of the processes “that will lead to the resumption and conclusion of the peace talks,” in Abuja, she said, without giving details on when talks would resume.

After talks with Beshir last February 16, Obasanjo said that he had been convinced by the Sudanese leader that the situation in the war-torn western Sudanese province of Darfur was improving.

“Things are looking greatly better in Darfur,” Obasanjo said, adding he hoped that AU-sponsored peace talks, which are to resume in Abuja, would bear fruit and that settlement would be reached.

The Sudanese leader met Obasanjo for brief talks in Abuja after attending an inconclusive summit on Darfur with fellow African leaders in the Chadian capital Ndjamena.

Sudan’s western Darfur region has been in the grip of fighting between rebel and government forces for the past two years and tens of thousands of civilians are estimated to have been killed by hunger, disease and militia attacks.

The AU has attempted to broker a peace deal but has made little concrete progress amid rising international pressure from outside the continent for United Nations sanctions and even foreign intervention.

Obasanjo has made it clear that he hopes that Africa can resolve the crisis without outside intervention.