CAIRO

(

30 Sep

.) -

In response to President Al Bashir’s announcement on Saturday that the leader ofandnbsp;the National Umma Party (NUP), Elandnbsp;Sadig El Mahdi, will be detained upon return to Sudan, El Mahdi said he would return in three cases.

El Mahdi, currently residing in the Egyptian capital, said he will return to his fatherland on request by the Umma Party, when the mediators of the AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) invite him to join meetings in Khartoum, or when he has concluded his mission of advocating the Paris Declaration abroad.

At a seminarandnbsp;of El Ahram Centreandnbsp;forandnbsp;Political and Strategic Studiesandnbsp;inandnbsp;Cairo, El Mahdi briefed the participants about the standpoint of the Sudanese opposition forces, as laid out in the Paris Declaration, signed by the NUP and the Sudan Revolutionary Front, (SRF, an alliance of the main rebel movements) in the French capital on 8 August.

In the Declaration, the signatories state that the Sudanese peace process can only succeed if the negotiations will be held comprehensively, instead of separate talks for Darfur, and South Kordofan and the Blue Nile. They agreed to work together on unifying the Sudanese opposition in order to realise a democratic transformation.

The NUP president explained in Cairo the contents of the road map the NUP and SRF had submitted during a meeting with the chairman of the AUHIP team in Addis Ababa on 1 September, in which the Sudanese opposition leaders called for AU mediators’ recognition of the SRF asandnbsp;a partner in the comprehensive peace negotiations.

The NUP and SRF leaders proposed a national constitutional conference, to form a national transitional government that would prepare for and conduct general elections. They stressed that the National Dialogue, initiated by President Al Bashir, can only succeed if Khartoum takes broad confidence-building measures, including the release of all political detainees, the banning of censorship on the media, and restoration of all civic freedoms in the country.

File photo: El Sadig El Mahdi (Sudan Vision)

Arabic Forum