Sudan rejects proposal to merge Qatari, AU mediation

Sudan on Tuesday rejected a proposal by the Darfur armed groups for merging the Qatari mediation with the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), official SUNA news agency reported.

"The call by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) for merging the Qatari mediation with the African mediation of the AUHIP, led by Thabo Mbeki, is an attempt to circumvent the road-map which the movements declined to sign," Amin Hassan Omer, head of Sudan's Darfur peace follow-up office, was quoted as saying.

"The call is an attempt to come up with a new mandate outside the mandate of the joint and Qatari mediations which are based on completing the peaceful process according to the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), which is rejected in principle," he noted.

The rebel JEM and SLA have earlier asked Qatar to play a bigger role in the mediation file with the Sudanese government by joining the AUHIP, led by Thabo Mbeki, to narrow the differences between the rivals.

Ahmad bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud, the Qatari deputy prime minister and head of the DDPD Implementation Follow-up Commission, earlier said the commission would meet with the JEM leader Gibril Ibrahim and SLA leader Minni Ako Minnawi in Doha by the end of May.

Last March, the Sudanese government unilaterally signed a road-map agreement backed by the African Union, stipulating arrangements related to cease-fire in Darfur, the Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions, engaging in a political process and involving the armed groups in the national dialogue conference.

However, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector, the JEM and the SLA together with the opposition Umma Party, led by Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, declined to sign the road-map.

The SPLM/northern sector and the armed groups in Darfur insist that a preparatory conference be held to bring together all the Sudanese political forces to agree on procedures to initiate an equitable dialogue with the government, a demand that the Sudanese government rejects.

Source: XINHUA