East Africa: Sudan Peace Talks to Resume This Week

21 January 2003
allAfrica.com
By Charles Cobb Jr.

Washington, DC — Following a meeting on Thursday between President Omar Hassan el-Bashir and U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, John Danforth, delayed peace talks between the government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) will get underway in the Nairobi suburb of Karen on Wednesday, January 22, according to reports out of Khartoum and Nairobi.

A furious round of negotiations has followed Sudan's decision not to send a delegation to the scheduled re-opening of talks on January 15.

The government was unhappy because mediators had scheduled an off-agenda discussion on the administration of contested areas in central Sudan for the opening session on January 15. The disputed areas fall outside of the areas specified in the mediation mandate of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad).

Sudan's chief negotiator, Ghazi Salah Eddin Attabani, has said the government's delegation is returning to the negotiation table "at the invitation" of the Kenyan negotiator, Lt.General Lazaro Sumbeiywo. But he stressed that the rescheduled January 22 talks will not include discussion of the disputed areas of central Sudan: Abyei in West Kordofan, the Nuba Mountain region in Southern Kordofan and the Angasana of Blue Nile province.

Despite the impression of a hitch, a Sudanese government delegation arrived in Nairobi two days after the postponed talks for a four-day "symposium" with the SPLM/A and "experts"from Norway, Switzerland and Great Britain on precisely the subject that had derailed the January 15 meeting - the disputed areas in central Sudan.

Sudanese officials however insisted that the status of these discussions was informal: "This is going to be a brainstorming session. This is not negotiations. It is not even consultations," said Sudan's deputy ambassador to Kenya, Ad'Dirdeiry M. Hamed.

Speaking to reporters after his meeting with President El-Bashir, Danforth said U.S. President George W. Bush expected to see progress over the next three months. A few days earlier, in Egypt, Danforth had told reporters that "it is important for the two parties to resume peace talks, real peace talks."

He added that the U.S. would walk away from the peace effort if the SPLM/A and government of Sudan failed to reach agreement within six months.

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