Neighbours agree not to host rebels

Military representatives from Sudan travelled to N’djamena, the capital of neighbouring Chad, where on Wednesday both sides agreed to stop hosting each other’s rebel forces in their territory. Chad cut diplomatic relations with Sudan on 14 April, one day after Chadian government forces repelled a rebel attack on N’djamena. Chad blamed Sudan for backing the rebels. Meanwhile, Sudan accuses Chad of supporting rebels in Darfur. Fighting there has pushed some 200,000 Sudanese refugees into Chad. Under Wednesday’s deal, the two sides agreed to set up a joint military commission to monitor their shared border that stretches some 1,000 km north-south through the Sahara desert. At the close of the meeting, delegates said that the talks had been called to “surmount all the points of difference between us, to turn a page on the past and to turn a new page on our relations for better mutual understanding”. This military reunion comes ahead of a scheduled meeting between the two heads of state, President Idriss Deby of Chad and Sudan's President Umar Hassan al-Bashir in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, in August. That meeting will be chaired by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and could see the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. mn/ss/cs