Sudan, Uganda mend fences
2004-04-16 12:56
Kampala - Senior Ugandan and Sudanese officials on Thursday began co-operation talks here, convening a joint permanent commission for the first time in 14 years, a foreign ministry official said.
The talks come three years after the African neighbours resumed diplomatic relations that had been severed in 1995 when the two sides traded accusations of supporting each other's rebels.
Uganda charged that Sudan sponsored the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighting Kampala in the country's north, while Sudan counter-accused Uganda of supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) battling Khartoum forces in southern Sudan.
"There is no place on this planet for stand-alone nations, so we need to join hands to attain a better tomorrow for our people," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismael told the opening session of the two-day meeting at a hotel in the Ugandan capital.
He is among dozens of Sudanese officials in Kampala for the talks with a 50-strong Ugandan team headed by acting Foreign Minister Tom Butime, according to Uganda's acting foreign ministry permanent secretary Julius Onen.
"The meeting, that last sat in 1990, will address several framework agreements including cooperation in security, voluntary repatriation of refugees, immigration and trade," Onen said.
He said committees would handle different areas of cooperation such as trade, refugees, education and science, agriculture and other issues.
Sudan is the second largest importer of Ugandan coffee following the European Union.
Onen said Khartoum believed in resolving conflicts in the region through dialogue, saying: "It is our unshakeable conviction that war and sabotage do no good to anyone.
Ismael said, for his part: "If we give a chance for peace to take root in Sudan, it will ramify in the entire region and eventually the agenda of conflicts, refugees and displaced persons will give way to a new agenda of development and reconstruction."
Ugandan Deputy Premier Moses Ali, who is also the minister in charge of refugees, told the meeting that peace in Sudan would translate into peace in Uganda and other countries of the region.
"The reactivation of the Uganda-Sudan Joint Ministerial Commission meeting is a timely event to further promote and strengthen ties of friendship, co-operation, mutual trust and confidence between the two countries," Ali noted.
- SAPA