Print

Mail

wiki links

Sudan officials and rebels plan to meet on neutral territory

Representatives of Sudan's government and of the main rebel group in the western Darfur region are scheduled to meet in the Netherlands yesterday to discuss implementing a peace plan and planning reconstruction, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.

It is the first time the two sides will have sat together since the May 5 peace deal was signed in Abuja, Nigeria, intended to end a three-year conflict that has claimed at least 180,000 lives and forced an estimated 2.5 million people to flee.

However, some rebel groups didn't sign the deal, and the UN and aid groups have said violence has actually worsened in the past month.

Sudanese Secretary of Finance Lhual Deng and Sudan Liberation Movement leader Abduljabbar Mohamoud Dosa plan to discuss "how to implement the Darfur peace agreement and what's needed for the reconstruction of Darfur," the Dutch ministry said in a statement.

The meeting, which runs through Thursday, will appoint a coordinating group to oversee international help, likely chaired by the Netherlands.

International donor groups also will attend the meeting, including representatives of the UN, the World Bank, the African Union, the European Commission, Britain, Norway and the US.

But reconstruction seems a distant possibility while the peace remains in doubt.

Minni Minnawi, who heads the Sudan Liberation Movement, said this weekend the peace agreement could "collapse soon" if the international community failed to send a UN peacekeeping force to the remote region of western Sudan.

The UN Security Council voted last month to replace an African Union mission that has proved largely unable to return stability to the area. A joint assessment team of UN and AU officials is touring the region to see how the takeover could take place, and Security Council members have said the transition could occur in early 2007.

President Omar al-Bashir reasserted on Tuesday he will never allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur, and said he would resist any foreign force.
This story has been viewed 1081 times.