|
Sudan signs accord with Darfur rebels
Sudan and Darfur's most active rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement signed an agreement on Tuesday paving the way for broader talks aimed at ending the six-year conflict in Darfur.Sudan started talks with the Justice and Equality Movement, one of Darfur's main rebel groups, last week, almost six years into a conflict that international United Nation's experts say has killed 300,000 people and uprooted 2.2 million. The declaration of intent was signed a day after the deal was announced between the rebel group and the Khartoum government by Qatar, which has been mediating the week of talks. "There has been great progress... and we now have an agreement," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters on Monday. The sponsors of the Doha talks -- Qatar, the United Nations, African Union and Arab League -- have stressed nevertheless that the talks are preliminary and intended to pave the way for a broader peace conference on Darfur. "We hope to launch negotiations in two weeks on, among other things, a ceasefire and issues related to the exchange of prisoners," said Sheikh Hamad, who is also Qatar's foreign minister. The most heavily armed of the Darfur rebel groups, the JEM boycotted a largely abortive peace deal signed by one other faction in 2006. In May last year, it launched an unprecedented assault on the Sudanese capital. Sudan, whose President Omar al-Bashir is facing a possible international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes including genocide in Darfur, puts the death toll at only 10,000. Is that a plea for leniency? Posted by: Fred 2009-02-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=262897 |