SPLA leader “ready to meet” president

John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), said on Sunday that he was ready to meet Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir in an attempt to bring an end to the country’s 17-year-old civil war. Speaking at last week’s conference in Eritrea of the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group for Sudan’s various opposition groups, Garang was quoted in an AP report on Sunday as saying that “a political solution is the best way to end the war”. Later, in an interview with Qatari Al-Jazeera television, monitored in Cairo, he said: “People are suffering a lot.I am personally ready to meet Bashir if Khartoum wants that.”

Meanwhile, with Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) talks set to resume in Nairobi on Thursday, George Garang, the Nairobi-based editor of the SPLA newsletter, told IRIN he was “less than optimistic” about the talks. He said Khartoum had continually failed to address “the separation of religion and state and, secondly, the question of self-determination for the people of the new Sudan”. The SPLA representative said these had “always been the main issues”.