Sudanese rebel chief briefs opposition leader on peace talks

CAIRO, Aug 14 (AFP) — Southern Sudanese rebel leader John Garang has briefed a northern opposition leader on talks underway in Kenya with the government to end Africa’s oldest civil war, an opposition statement said Thursday.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said that its leader, Mohamed Osman Mirghani, met with Garang, who heads the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), in the Egyptian capital on Wednesday and Thursday.

Mirghani and other northern opposition leaders in May had voiced support for the SPLM/A-Khartoum peace talks, following an earlier meeting with Garang.

A new round of negotiations began Monday at Nanyuki, in central Kenya, to end the 20-year civil war between the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum and the mostly animist and Christian south.

Khartoum and the SPLM/A struck in July 2002 a breakthrough accord granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting the south from Islamic laws.

But Khartoum and the rebels are still wrangling on how power can be shared during the interim period.