Khartoum, rebels ready for cessation of hostilities

The Khartoum government has said it will only resume negotiations with rebels, slated for 14 October in the Kenyan town of Machakos, if they agree to a temporary cessation of hostilities. "We will not sit down with them to negotiate if they haven't signed before or on the 14th," Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Thursday. "We are ready to sign and have made that very clear." Spokesman for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) Samson Kwaje told IRIN they would sign an agreement on the 14th, once they had seen the prepared text. "As long as it doesn't involve a comprehensive ceasefire, which will be negotiated when the talks have resumed, we will agree to a cessation of hostilities during the talks," he said. Meanwhile, the forces of the opposition National Democratic Alliance - an umbrella group of southern and northern Sudanese opposition groups - claim to have captured two strategic towns on 8 October along the highway joining the capital, Khartoum, and the town of Port Sudan. "The capture of the two Rasais [called Rasai I and II] effectively cuts off traffic on this strategic highway which is the lifeline to the hinterland," said a statement released by the SPLA. The SPLA had also "destroyed" a convoy of about 3,000 government troops moving though Mankien along the Bahr el Ghazal river in western Sudan, a separate statement claimed. Dirdeiry dismissed both claims as "propaganda", saying that they were "completely baseless". He added that 3,000 troops would never move together in one convoy "for obvious security reasons". Government negotiators pulled out of peace talks in Machakos, Kenya on 2 September, saying the SPLM/A had spoiled the atmosphere of talks by attacking and capturing the town of Torit, in eastern Equatoria, the previous day. On 8 October, Khartoum announced that it had retaken the town, while the SPLA said it had carried out "a tactical withdrawal" of its forces.