Sudan: President al-Bashir meets UN delegation

(SomaliNet) Calling for fresh peace talks on Darfur, Sudan\'s president told the U.N. Security Council that a dispute between the northern government and former southern rebels over an oil-rich border region could be settled next week.

The Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir\'s upbeat news Thursday about a possible agreement on the Abyei region was in stark contrast to his adamant refusal to cooperate with the International Criminal Court\'s chief prosecutor, who alleges the Sudanese government is involved in crimes against humanity.

Reports say Al-Bashir also insisted the humanitarian situation in Darfur \"is witnessing clear improvement,\" which dismayed some council members who had just visited a camp in North Darfur where violence has forced food rations to be cut in half.

The president met with the council after holding talks on Abyei with delegations from the Sudanese People\'s Liberation Movement, the south\'s main party, and the ruling National Congress Party in the north.

A 2005 peace agreement ended two decades of fighting between north and south that left an estimated 2 million people dead.

The agreement established a unity government but key issues were unresolved — including the north-south boundary and the future of Abyei, just north of the disputed border.

Al-Bashir said the top unresolved issue is Abyei but he told the council that it would \"soon be settled through ongoing consultations between the two partners.\"

South Africa\'s United Nations Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who co-leads the U.N. delegation, said Wednesday the sides agreed that Abyei\'s residents who fled in May will go back home, that the border issue will be put to an international arbitration body still to be selected and that all restrictions on the movement of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Sudan will be lifted.

On Darfur, al-Bashir stressed that Sudan was determined to find a political solution.

The Darfur conflict has killed up to 300,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes since 2003 when ethnic Africans took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum to fight discrimination.

military options that a durable solution may be found,\" he said in Arabic.

Britain\'s U.N. Ambassador John Sawers, the other co-leader, said the president \"was not very positive\" about including one of the largest rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, in any political process after its fighters launched a surprise attack last month in Omdurman, just outside Khartoum.

It marked the first time in decades the rebels had approached the capital.

Al-Bashir blamed Chad for the attack and broke diplomatic relations. The troubled Sudan-Chad relationship is certain to be high on the agenda of the council\'s meetings Friday during a daylong visit to Chad.

\"We made clear that for the political process to succeed, people have to talk to their former enemies, and we encouraged him to renew his effort on the political process,\" Sawers said.

Sawers said that both al-Bashir and the council want Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to quickly select a new full-time mediator to jump-start negotiations between the government and Darfur\'s splintered rebel groups. \"We\'re all a bit disappointed we don\'t have one yet,\" he said.

The president also accused the international community of \"exploiting\" the Darfur crisis.

\"This vicious campaign has targeted the policies and positions of my country. It has strived to exaggerate and distort facts. It has tarnished the image, heritage and values of our people,\" he said.

The Security Council got a firsthand look Thursday at the worsening conflict during a whirlwind visit to Zamzam camp north of El Fasher, home to 62,000 people forced to flee their homes in Darfur.-AP