Sudanese Govt. Agrees to Resume Peace Talks with Rebels

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 09, 2003

Sudanese Govt. Agrees to Resume Peace Talks with Rebels

The government of the Sudan has finally agreed to take part in the peace talks with southern rebels, scheduled for Aug. 10 in central Kenya, a Sudanese official confirmed here Friday.

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The government of the Sudan has finally agreed to take part in the peace talks with southern rebels, scheduled for Aug. 10 in central Kenya, a Sudanese official confirmed here Friday.

"If we are going to have a fresh draft, we would be willing to sit down again to negotiate," Mohammed Ahmed Dirdeiry, the Sudanese Charge d'affaires to Kenya and resident delegate to the peace talks, told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

"But if we are asked to renegotiate the same draft from Nakuru,I think we would find it very difficult to sit with the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) and discuss it," Mohammed added.

The Khartoum government has announced it will not resume peace talks with southern rebels unless the mediating African body modifies a draft accord.

East African mediators, who have been making efforts to save the talks from collapse, said here that the Sudan peace talks due to resume at the Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki on Sunday could make or break prospects of ending the 20-year civil war in the Sudan.

"It is what you call decision time now. It's like a surgical operation. They have to decide whether to bear with the pain of surgery or to bear with the pain of death," an official from the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) secretariat, who declined to be named, told Xinhua by telephone.

The Sudanese government in July rejected proposals presented bymediators during the 6th round of talks in the Kenyan town of Nakuru, saying the proposals would lead to the disintegration of the Sudan.

They said the draft was a prelude to a secession of the southern Sudan with a separate army and independent central bank during the interim phase.

The draft framework agreement, which came amid strong US engagement with the peace process, was seen as giving the Sudan its best hope of peace since war resumed 20 years ago.

The draft presented in Nakuru provides for the current president to continue to lead the country, with the SPLA leader asvice-president and head of the government of the southern Sudan until elections are held.

The SPLA has largely accepted the latest proposals, covering issues left out of the Machakos deal.

SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said his side would not accept any amended version to the draft framework.

"We shall not accept any amended version. We can only engage innegotiations under the same draft document," Kwaje added, in reaction to new conditions set by the Khartoum government.

IGAD, a regional organization which brokered the talks, has setAug. 10 as the date to resume peace talks to end the 20-year war in the southern Sudan between the government and the SPLA.

In July last year, the government and the SPLA struck a breakthrough accord in the Kenyan town of Machakos granting the south the right to self-determination after a six-year transition period and exempting the south from Islamic laws.

IGAD comprises the east African states of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Sudan, Uganda and, nominally, Somalia.

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