Sudan: Gov’t unhappy at some Darfur rebel demands

(SomaliNet) Sudan\'s government is not enthusiastic about some elements of a joint Darfur rebel negotiating platform agreed during UN and African Union mediated talks, UN Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson said on Tuesday.

Eliasson and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim, in an effort to reignite peace efforts, brought many Darfur commanders and groups together for unity talks in Arusha early this week.

They emerged from the meeting in Tanzania with a common platform, including agreement on land issues, power and wealth-sharing ahead of proposed talks with the government.
But Eliasson told reporters after meeting Foreign Ministry officials in Khartoum: \"Not all of the points of course are met with great enthusiasm, but it is a basis.\"

Khartoum says a Darfur peace deal it signed with one of three rebel negotiating factions in May 2006 should not be reopened to address the concerns of rebels, who have since split into more than a dozen factions.
\"The government does not want to have a renegotiation of the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement) so this is a matter we will discuss both with the government and with the non-signatories - how will we finalise the final agenda,\" Eliasson added.

He said the UN-AU team would to try to bring government and rebel positions together in the coming weeks to reach a final agenda for talks, due to begin in about two months.

Senior Foreign Ministry official Mutrif Siddig said the government welcomed the Arusha talks, but was disappointed not all the factions were present and that the original timeline, which had envisaged peace talks beginning by August, was lost.

International experts estimate 200 000 people have died and 2,5 million have been driven from their homes during more than four years of rape, murder, disease and looting in Darfur, violence Washington calls genocide.

European governments are reluctant to use the term, which Khartoum rejects. Sudan puts the death toll at 9 000.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants on war crimes charges against a government minister and a militia leader.

On Tuesday ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Khartoum must hand over the suspects.

\"Sudan cannot be a pariah country. They know it is important. The government needs legitimacy, so they will respect the law,\" Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters in Australia.