Chad resumes mediation in Sudan’s Darfur conflict

CAIRO, April 28 (AFP) — Chad said Thursday it had resumed its role as a mediator in Sudan’s Darfur conflict, raising hopes of renewed efforts to negotiate an end to the two-year-old crisis.

Idriss Deby meets with Omer el-Bashir, in Khartoum, on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 (AFP).

“Chad and the Chadian president are committed to continuing to exert efforts to help resolve the crisis in Darfur,” Foreign Minister Nagoum Yamassoum declared after a meeting in Cairo with Arab League chief Amr Mussa.

Yammassoum said negotiations were currently ongoing in Ndjamena between Sudanese officials and Darfur rebels, but he did not provide details.

The conflict between Khartoum and ethnic minority rebels has left some 300,000 people dead and 2.4 million displaced.

Some of refugees fled across the border to Chad.

“We have informed the brothers in Sudan that resolving a problem as complex as Darfur requires some sacrifices,” said Yamassoum as he deplored less than flexible stances by both the government and rebels.

There is a need to continue efforts to break the deadlock. So far “we have not found a way to do that, but that is normal in these types of problems,” he added.

Ndjamena said on April 16 that President Idriss Deby had agreed to resume efforts to mediate in the conflict, after briefly suspending them.

Ndjamena had accused Sudan of seeking to destabilize Chad by supporting a 3,000-strong armed force near the border and said it was suspending its role in protest.

Chad played an important role in getting the Sudanese government and the two main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), last year to sign a truce.

It continued to help narrow differences between the warring parties despite their repeated violations of a ceasefire agreement.

Ndjamena was also instrumental in getting the rebels to agree to attend two rounds of African Union-sponsored peace negotiations with the government in Abuja, Nigeria.

Chad, whose 10 million population is half Muslim and where Arabic is widely spoken, will soon join the Arab League as an observer, Mussa said Wednesday.