UK renews mediation efforts to end east Sudan problems

KHARTOUM, Apr 12, 2005 (Sudan Tribune) — The British government has renewed its initiative to end the crisis in east Sudan, the Sudanese Al Ray Al-Amm said.

Rebels from Sudan’s Eastern Front parade during a conference held by the Front north of Kassala town, near the Eritrean border. (AFP).

It is thought that one of its diplomats had already conveyed the proposals of the Eastern Front (EF) on how to resolve the crisis to the Sudanese government.

The British mediator is also expected to announce today a date for the discussion of the proposals between the Sudanese government and the EF leaders who live in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

Meanwhile, the EF has said that the venue of the conference should not be in itself a problem.

A spokesman for the Beja Congress, which is one of the EF leading factions, Idris Nur, said that the venue of the talks should be decided through dialogue between the two parties, and that the EF should not have a problem with the venue which the mediators and the two parties would agree upon.

He said, however, that the EF would prefer Asmara to be the venue of the talks.

Nur strongly criticized the government’s proposal that an all-inclusive conference of the people of east Sudan should be held in Kassala — northeast Sudan — in April, describing it as a ruse to downplay the issue.

He went on to say that such a conference was unacceptable, and that the EF would oppose it with everything in its power, including armed resistance.

He says it is the EF right to represent the east, and it will be unacceptable that it will be left out from any meeting that will discuss the crisis in the region.