Setback to Chad, Sudan talks
2006-08-10 08:38
Dakar - The indefinite postponement of high-profile Senegalese-brokered reconciliation talks between Chad and Sudan has dealt a tentative setback to mediation efforts of President Abdoulaye Wade.
The much-billed mini-summit between Sudan's Omar al-Beshir and Chad's Idriss Deby had been slated for Wednesday in the Senegalese capital under the mediation of African Union appointed "facilitator" Wade.
Wade was adamant until Tuesday evening that the talks would take place, despite a similar impromptu parley organised between the two former erstwhile neighbours by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in N'Djamena earlier in the day.
The two neighbours agreed at the summit organised on the fringes of the investiture of Deby in N'Djamena, to immediately normalise relations which Deby broke off in April.
Additional value
A western diplomat based in Dakar said following the N'Djamena talks, another meeting in Dakar would not have had "any additional value" to the process.
"If Beshir had not been in N'Djamena, such a summit would have taken place, but after what happened over there, we do not see what they could have done in Dakar except to shake hands in public," the diplomat said.
Deby and his Sudanese counterpart Beshir promised a "solemn commitment to put a definitive end to their differences by immediately normalising diplomatic and economic relations" after the Tuesday talks.
Relations strained
Chad severed diplomatic ties in April, alleging Sudan harboured and armed rebels who wanted to topple Deby's 15-year-old government.
Khartoum on the other hand had repeatedly alleged that Chad backed Darfur rebel groups fighting the Sudanese government.
Relations between the two neighbours have been strained since the start of a civil war in the Darfur region of western Sudan in February 2003 which has caused more than 200 000 refugees to flee into Chad.