Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said on Friday he was
optimistic about striking a peace deal with rebels in Nigeria
within weeks to end a three year-conflict in Darfur which has led
to the death of thousands of people.
Speaking in a press briefing on the sidelines of an
Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD) Council of
Ministers meeting, Akol said the peace talks underway in Abuja,
Nigeria, between rebels from Sudan's western Darfur region and the
Sudanese government, may result in a peace deal by the end of
April.
However, Akol admitted that a peace deal may not end the
violence, due to a splintering of rebel factions and called for
apolitical compromise between the negotiating parties. "We hope
that before the end of April, the political solution will be
available in Darfur because of all the stakeholders including the
African Union (AU) have agreed that we must give priority to the
realization of peace in Darfur," Akol said. The minister said that
wide strides have been made during the current round of talks
concerning the sharing of wealth and power and the security
arrangements' agreement.
He said that a road-map for solving Darfur conflict is to be
formulated with the participation of the United Nations, the AU,
the Sudan government and the rebel movements.
"A number of steps have been taken. The AU will name a five-man
committee comprising the current chairman including some heads of
state to raise the profile of the peace so that both parties can
see the importance of the talks," he said.
"So we are optimistic that in the next few weeks, we should
expect a breakthrough as far as Darfur talks are concerned," Akol
told journalists.
He said that the two main rebel groups and the Sudanese
government, which started a seventh round of talks in Abuja early
this year, are closer on many issues on the negotiating table
--including sharing power and oil wealth.
Among the reasons for his guarded optimism was that after the
peace deal between the north and south, Sudan's National Unity
Government has included the Sudan People's Liberation Movement,
creating a "different political climate."
However, the possibility of independence -- envisioned in
southern Sudan where a referendum on secession is due within six
years of the peace deal -- was not for Darfur.
Akol appealed to donors not to peg their assistance to the
resolution of the Darfur conflict, lamenting that the southern
Sudan has only received 30 percent of the pledges made during the
Oslo donors' conference.
"The international community should not ignore the southern
conflict because of the conflict in Darfur. The donors also should
not tie their assistance or the pledges they made in Oslo on the
resolution of the conflict in Darfur," he said.
"We are concerned about our people in Darfur and elsewhere. We
are concerned about their welfare. We want to stop their suffering
as soon as possible and that is why we are striving to see that
this conflict is brought to a speedy end," Akol said. The minister
said his country will reject the propose deployment of UN forces to
Darfur even after the African Union's peacekeeping mandate expires
in September.
He said that the AU forces are working in coordination with all
the parties and within the context of cooperation with the
international community and the United Nations to solve the issue
of Darfur.
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"The AU should continue doing its job in Darfur because it has not
said it's unable to do its job. The AU has been there for more than
a year. We need to hear from AU that they don't have the capacity,
it cannot do its job and then we can agree on how to handle the
matter," he said.
He stressed that the presence of the AU forces was upon the
agreement of the Sudan government and in accordance with a specific
mandate for monitoring the ceasefire protocol, which was signed by
the parties of the conflict in Darfur.
His comment conflicts with the agreement announced in Addis
Ababa last Friday, when Sudan and the AU agreed to extend the
mandate of the AU peacekeepers in Darfur to September, and then
allow them to be merged into a larger United Nations force. The
7,000-strong AU force, which was deployed in 2004, has been
suffering from poor funding and inadequate resources to contain the
escalating bloodshed in Sudan's western region.
The Khartoum government has long opposed a UN force replacing
the AU mission in Darfur.
The war in Darfur broke out in February 2003, when some groups
launched a rebellion against Khartoum and were put down by the
Sudan government.
Nearly 300,000 people have died and 2.4 million made refugees in
the civil war that has enveloped the western Sudan province over
the past three years.
(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2006)
