عاجل: شريكا الحكم في السودان يتفقان على القضايا الخلافية!!!

Quote: Sudan leaders "make progress" in reform row talks 3:35am EST By Andrew Heavens KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Former south Sudanese rebels on Sunday said they had made progress in talks with Sudan's president to defuse a row over democratic reforms that has threatened a peace deal in the oil-producing state. The south's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) joined a coalition government with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's northern National Congress Party (NCP) as part of a 2005 accord that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war. But relations between the former foes have been strained, most recently last week when Khartoum authorities arrested two senior SPLM officials and scores of their supporters at a protest rally. Analysts have warned there is a risk of a return to conflict if the parties can not agree on the terms of laws that are supposed to pave the way to elections, due in April, and a referendum on southern independence in 2011, both promised under the peace deal. "It looks likely that we have an agreement on three laws. We are discussing other issues now," SPLM secretary general Pagan Amum told Reuters in a break in negotiations at the president's guest house in Khartoum. Both sides have met repeatedly over the past year to try to break a deadlock on the bills, but the talks gained new momentum over the weekend when south Sudan's president and SPLM leader Salva Kiir flew to Khartoum to meet Bashir face to face. Amum told Reuters the sides were close to an agreement on the terms of laws setting out the referendum process, a separate ballot on whether the volatile oil region of Abyei should join the south and vaguer consultation exercises in other border areas. Sources close to the negotiations told Reuters both sides still differed over a national security bill which the SPLM argues gives too many powers to security services. Presidential assistant and NCP official Nafie Ali Nafie told state media on Sunday the talks were "progressing positively" and the disputed bills would soon be put before parliament. The parties have announced breakthroughs before that failed to end long term wrangling over the details of their troubled peace deal. Both sides signed an agreement to push through the disputed or neglected elements of a 2005 peace deal in August that U.S. envoy Scott Gration said was the culmination of months of work. But a month later they were still stuck on the details on how to run the referendum. A further breakthrough in discussions on the referendum in October fell apart weeks later. Gration was due to return to Khartoum for more talks on Sunday. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Matthew Jones)