Khartoum denies obstructing peace talks

The government of Sudan on Saturday denied allegations made by the rebel SPLM/A that it was responsible for the postponement of peace negotiations which had been scheduled to begin on 24 September in Nairobi. In a statement, the Sudanese embassy in Kenya said that 24 September had been only a provisional date for the talks, and that Khartoum had requested the date be changed to allow time for consultations with the chairman of the IGAD-sponsored peace process, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, before starting permanent negotiations. "The consultation meeting is requested to review the whole peace process and propose ways and means for tackling the difficulties which arrested any progress since 1997," the statement said. SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje claimed in a statement on Thursday that the government of Sudan had postponed the latest round of talks under the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), giving "flimsy reasons" for not attending. Khartoum was "backing away from IGAD's peace process in preference for other initiatives that do not address the root causes of war", he added. The secretary of the Sudanese ruling party, the National Congress, Ibrahim Ahmad Umar, said on Monday that Khartoum "may reconsider" its participation in the IGAD-sponsored initiative. Umar was quoted as saying by AFP that the IGAD secretariat needed to "present something" to convince the government to go along with the process. The IGAD initiative, supported by the US, was launched in the early 1990s by the East African regional grouping in an attempt to reconcile Khartoum with the SPLM/A, AFP said. Both the Sudanese government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - an opposition umbrella group including the SPLM/A - in June accepted the provisions of a parallel peace initiative proposed jointly by the governments of Egypt and Libya. Some NDA members, however, have criticised the Egyptian-Libyan proposal for failing to include the principles of separation of religion and state and self-determination for the south - both included in the IGAD-sponsored plan.