Congress says agreement possible without SPLM/A

Sudanese political groups may reach “comprehensive political agreement” without the involvement of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) if it insists on boycotting a national peace conference (proposed under the Libyan-Egyptian initiative on Sudan), according to the Secretary-General of the ruling National Congress (NC) party, Ibrahim Ahmad Umar. The presence of the SPLM/A at such a conference was important, but the rebels were mistaken if they believed that no agreement could be reached without them, the ‘Khartoum Monitor’ quoted him as saying. The SMPL/A was a constituent element of the umbrella opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which was committed to the joint initiative and the decisions of which were binding on the rebel movement, so the government was not giving much consideration to the SPLM/A’s separate statement outlining its conditions for participating, Umar stated. The National Congress was set to bridge the gap between it and the NDA, under its chairman Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani, but had no intention of involving Hasan Abdallah al-Turabi and his Popular Nation Congress (which was formed after Turabi and his supporters split off from the NC last year as a result of a leadership struggle between Turabi and President Umar Hasan al-Bashir) in the Libyan-Egyptian initiative, the report added. The Sudanese government on Monday appealed to the international community to exert pressure on the SPLM/A, which, it said, had first accepted the joint initiative, but later insisted that self-determination for the south and the separation of religion and state must be included in the agenda. “We had earlier said that the rebel acceptance of the initiative was only a tactical move. The agenda of the rebel movement is that of war,” the Associated Press agency (AP) quoted from a government statement.