Agence France-Presse,
KHARTOUM (AFP): The Sudanese government agreed to hold new talks with Darfur rebels next month after a meeting between President Omar al-Beshir and visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday.
The talks, to be held in Libya on October 27, will aim to bring on board all rebel factions, including those which rejected a previous peace deal thrashed out in Nigeria in May 2006.
“The government of Sudan pledges to contribute positively to secure the environment for the negotiations, fulfilling its commitment to a full cessation of hostilities in Darfur and agreed upon ceasefire,” said a joint statement issued after the Khartoum meeting.
“The UN welcomes the decision to issue invitations from the secretary general and the chairperson of the African Union commission for the renewed peace talks on 27th October 2007 in Libya,” it added.
Last month, UN and AU mediators brokered talks in Tanzania between the myriad rebel factions to thrash out a common platform in readiness for renewed talks with the government.
The agreement reached drew the support of the majority of factions, although not that of the founding father of the rebellion launched in 2003, Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, who is now based in exile in Paris.
The talks announcement was an achievement of the South Korean UN chief who has made the Darfur conflict one of his top priorities since he took up the job in January.
Ban spoke of his horror at the plight of the civilian population in Darfur after he personally visited the war-ravaged region on Wednesday.
Admitting the international community had failed to do enough to end the crisis — he said his visit had “made my resolve stronger and firmer to work for peace and security.”
“I was so shocked and humbled when I visited the IDP (internally displaced people) camp,” he added.
According to UN estimates, some 200,000 people have died in Darfur and two million more fled their homes since the Sudanese army and allied militants moved to suppress the rebellion launched by ethnic minorities against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.
Washington has described the scorched earth policy adopted by Khartoum against ethnic minority villages suspected of supporting the rebels as genocidal.
Khartoum says only 9,000 people have died.
Alongside the peace talks, Ban has been working to hammer out a detailed agreement with Khartoum for the rapid deployment of a 26,000-strong new peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Ban told journalists he had obtained Beshir's “commitment and readiness” to clear the way for the deployment of UN peacekeepers and said that “time is of the essence” as fighting continues.
Beshir insists that most of the UN-African Unity force of 26,000 personnel, whose deployment was authorized by the Security Council in July, must be drawn from African countries.
Ban's representative in Sudan, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, said that so far the UN roadmap for deploying the troops had been respected, with initial steps achieved to put in place the peacekeepers' command structure. This should be completed in October.
“But as for deploying the troops on the ground, that's a long way off,” Zerihoun said, indicating that the first contingent — probably Chinese — could arrive at the beginning of next year.
Complete deployment was not expected before mid-2008.
The new force will replace an African Union observation mission whose lack of finance, equipment and troops — 5,915 men out of the 7,000 authorised — was inadequate to protect civilians in an area the size of France.
