Sudan ex-rebels show unity
2006-05-30 09:29
Khartoum - Former southern Sudanese rebels wound up landmark talks with the ruling party in Khartoum on Monday vowing to work as partners but failing to reach agreement on a disputed oil-rich province.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the ruling National Congress party issued a statement after three days of talks promising to strengthen their partnership after signing a January 2005 peace deal.
First vice-president Salva Kiir, who heads the SPLM, and former arch-foe President Omar al-Beshir told journalists that they would work together to bring stability to the violence-wracked nation.
"We have a national responsibility at this most critical time in the history of Sudan," Beshir said.
However the president also underlined that the nation's freshly-flowing oil wealth was not "the spoils of war to be distributed and shared".
The talks, the first such meeting since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed to end Africa's longest-running war, came amid SPLM complaints that Khartoum was stalling its implementation.
Following the signing of the deal, the SPLM joined a national unity government in 2005, ending the 21-year-old war between Beshir's Islamist regime and the mainly Christian southern rebels that killed 1.5 million people and displaced four million.
But despite the marathon talks, the two sides failed to reach agreement on the status of the disputed oil-rich province of Abyei, saying simply that the matter would be resolved in a political way.
The central territory continues to be one of the main stumbling blocks in the north-south deal because of a dispute between the Arab Misariyah and African Dinka Ngok tribes over ownership of the region.
The Misariyah and the NCP have rejected boundaries proposed by an international commission while the Dinka - to which Kiir belongs - insist the area is part of south Sudan.
Beshir also lambasted Washington for failing to lift sanctions imposed Khartoum's sponsorship of terrorism despite the signing of separate peace deals with the south and with one rebel group in the western Darfur region.
"They want to give us a new recipe, so they say now you have to solve the problem in the east," he said, referring to yet another Sudanese rebellion.
Talks aimed at ending that conflict are due to start in the Eritrean capital Asmara on June 13.
Amid criticism of Khartoum for failing to agree to the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur to replace the under-manned African Union mission, Kiir said there had been "a misunderstanding".
"We did not refuse the UN force to come to Darfur," he said. "But they must come with a clear mandate."
He said the matter had been raised with UN troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi when he visited Sudan last week.