Opposition alliance calls for transitional government

The opposition umbrella National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has demanded a transitional government be formed before it goes ahead with a national reconciliation conference to end Sudan's 18-year civil war, AFP reported on Sunday. AFP quoted NDA spokesman Ali Ahmad al-Sayyid as saying the NDA would "demand" that a preparatory meeting ahead of a constitutional conference should seek to form a transitional government which would then determine the agenda of the conference. A national reconciliation conference has been proposed under the joint Egyptian-Libyan peace plan put forward in June. The NDA groups northern opposition parties with southern-based rebels, including the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

Meanwhile, a senior Sudanese MP said on Sunday that pro-government officials in southern Sudan were opposed to government plans to withdraw from a parallel peace initiative sponsored by the East African regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), AFP reported. "The government has no right to withdraw from the IGAD initiative," AFP quoted National Assembly Deputy Speaker Angelo Beda as saying on Sunday. Beda said he regarded the IGAD-sponsored peace process as "the sole agreed upon forum" for resolving the southern Sudan problem.

The Sudanese presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, said on 5 October that Khartoum would give the IGAD process "one last chance" to end the war, saying the government was "fed up" with the initiative's poor progress since it began in 1993. He added that the government was also working for peace through the Egyptian-Libyan plan. "The search for peace is not limited to any particular initiative," he said.