UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced yesterday that new peace talks to end the 4 year conflict in Darfur will start October 27 in Libya.
There was no immediate word from Darfur rebels whether they would attend the conference. Most rebels have rejected a peace deal that one rebel faction signed with Khartoum last year, and Ban - on his first visit to Sudan - has been pressing to get the groups to the negotiating table.
A joint communique issued by Ban and al-Bashir after their second round of talks in Khartoum stressed the importance of reaching a political solution to the conflict.
Ban has pressed hard to get the splintered rebel groups back to the negotiating table. His joint announcement with al-Bashir signaled that a date and venue have been set - but the real test will be whether rebel movements would agree to take part in the talks.
The May 2006 peace deal signed by the Sudanese government and one rebel group in Abuja, Nigeria, has largely fallen apart and the continued violence has prompted the need for deploying UN peacekeepers.
Tripoli has in the past hosted several lower-level meetings to try to get the disparate rebel groups together but with no success. Ban, who is on a weeklong Africa tour, will fly to Libya tomorrow, after a stop in Chad.
Darfur's conflicts began in 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by unleashing janjaweed militias, blamed for killings against civilians. The government denies the accusations.
Ban and al-Bashir's joint note also expressed hope that the rebel groups will "cooperate fully... to ensure that the negotiations are concluded as expeditiously as possible."
For its part, the Sudanese government pledged to "prepare for and participate constructively in renewed negotiations on Darfur," to be held under UN and African Union mediation, it said.
In the note, Sudan also pledged to work with the UN and AU to "facilitate the timely deployment" of a new 26,000 strong joint AU-UN peacekeeping force for Darfur.
The United Nations, in turn, pledged "to do its utmost ... to deploy the hybrid operation in a timely fashion in support of peace consolidation in Darfur."
At a press conference later yesterday, Ban and al-Bashir expressed concern at "continuing humanitarian suffering and insecurity in Darfur."
When Ban took the reins of the United Nations in January, he made Darfur a top priority and appointed former Swedish Ambassador Jan Eliasson to join the AU efforts to get all rebel factions to the peace table.
Ban's visit in Sudan also focused on pressing the government for speedier deployment of a new peacekeeping force for Darfur.
After visiting Darfur on Wednesday and seeing first hand the plight of the Darfurians, Ban said he had even great resolve to try to bring peace to their land.
Source: China Daily/agencies
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