Sudan-Rebel Peace Talks to Resume this Week

The African Union said Tuesday it hopes a resumption of peace talks between Khartoum and rebels this week will lead to their joining a broader dialogue about Sudan's political future.

The AU-brokered negotiations are to resume in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa after a first round adjourned on February 18 without a single face-to-face meeting between the combatants.

"This week we will continue the negotiations between Sudan and SPLM-North, and hope that this will open the door for the movement to join the national dialogue process," AU chief mediator Thabo Mbeki told reporters after meeting President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum.

Bashir's aide Ibrahim Ghandour, who is also Sudan's chief negotiator, said his team would return to Addis Ababa on Thursday to continue the dialogue.

Ethnic rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North have been fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states for nearly three years, a war which has affected more than one million civilians, according to the United Nations.

Like the decade-old insurgency in Sudan's western Darfur region, the conflict has been fueled by complaints among non-Arab groups of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated regime.

Analysts -- along with the rebels themselves -- say the conflicts need to be addressed within a comprehensive national framework, not on a piecemeal basis as has been the government's practice in the past.

Bashir has called for a wide-ranging national dialogue, including with armed rebels, but government negotiators want the Addis Ababa talks to focus only on South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

A peace deal there "will support the national dialogue process," Ghandour has said.

"President Bashir confirmed he is interested in speeding up the peace process," Ghandour said Tuesday.

Veteran columnist Mahjoub Mohammed Salih wrote in Tuesday's The Citizen newspaper of "multiple and contradictory government statements" over the need for a comprehensive solution to political turmoil in Sudan, which has been ruled by Bashir for 25 years.

On one hand officials speak of involving everyone in an inclusive dialogue, but when it comes to South Kordofan and Blue Nile the government "insists that the dialogue concerns only the two states' issues," Salih said.

The AU presented both sides with a draft agreement for them to consider after talks adjourned last week.

The agreement would put in place an immediate ceasefire and allow aid to reach "all affected persons."

According to a draft obtained by Agence France Presse, the government and rebels would "affirm the need for an inclusive and holistic process of national dialogue and constitutional reform."

Such a process would uphold the principles of democracy, unity in diversity, and the rights and equality of all citizens, it says, adding that the broader national discussion would not be prejudiced by talks on South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Mbeki said that within the next few days he plans to meet with Sudanese political parties and non-governmental groups about the national dialogue.

SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi told AFP he thinks rebel negotiators "will be ready to go" to this week's talks in Addis Ababa, but discussion of South Kordofan and Blue Nile must occur only in the "national framework."

Numerous separate deals between the government and "marginalized" areas of the country have not brought results, he said.