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Darfur Foes Agree to Revive Peace Talks
 Warring parties in Sudan's Darfur agreed yesterday to revive stalled peace talks, after the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged firm action to end a conflict he described as near hell on earth. A mediator at talks between rebels and Sudanese government officials in Chad's capital N'Djamena said the two sides had agreed to respect an oft-violated cease-fire and restart full peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.The declaration came after Annan urged the UN Security Council to take immediate steps to stop the Darfur war, which has killed at least 70,000 people and displaced 2 million. "The Abuja process is thus relaunched as both sides have made firm commitments," the Chadian mediator, who declined to be named, said at the talks. The agreement was reached between Sudanese government officials and Darfur's two main rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement. Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, current chair of the 53-member African Union, said on Wednesday he hoped peace talks would start again in Abuja at the end of February. "Darfur's people are living in hell," Chad's President Idriss Deby told the talks, also attended by international mediators and AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare. Posted by: Fred 2005-02-18 |
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