|
إيقاد.. المشتركة.. الاتحاد الإفريقي.. وبالعكس،، مشوار الإنقاذ للسلام
|
Rebels urge AU summit to support regional grouping's peace efforts for Sudan
NAIROBI, July 9 (AFP) -- The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Wednesday accused the authorities in Khartoum of trying to scupper hard-won gains in the country's long-running peace process by calling for a change in mediators.
Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the SPLM/A, appealed to the African Union (AU), which is holding a summit meeting in Mozambique starting Thursday, to support the final phase of the Sudan peace talks in Kenya, held under the mediation of the regional Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
He said the SPLM/A had learned that the Sudanese foreign minister was circulating a proposal at the AU summit, calling on the pan-African grouping to take over the Sudan peace process from IGAD.
"The peace process is already at an advanced stage and it is critical that all efforts from the international community, particularly AU, should be deployed to support it," Kwaje said.
"As the AU convenes in Maputo, Mozambique, the SPLM/A reiterates its total commitment to the regional peace process as the only viable and ideal forum that can bring a just and durable peace in Sudan," he told AFP.
The proposal allegedly put forward at the summit by Khartoum was "typical of Khartoum's policy of 'forum shopping' whenever it is confronted with truth, " Kwaje said.
He recalled that the Sudan government had shifted in the early 1990s from Nigerian mediation in the peace talks to an Egyptian-Libyan initiative, before turning to South African mediation and finally IGAD.
"Now they want to move away from IGAD to AU so that we can begin afresh and forget the gains made under the IGAD mediation," Kwaje said.
"The SPLM/A will not leave the IGAD process and will not follow the Sudan government wherever it goes on its mission of forum shopping," he warned.
IGAD, which is mediating the peace talks fir Sudan, groups Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia under the chairmanship of Kenya.
The sixth and final phase of Sudan peace talks resumed on Sunday in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru, 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of Nairobi, to put the final touches to a draft agreement the two sides are due to sign next month.
|
|
|
|
|
|