Tripoli, Libya – In an international summit Sunday to push peace in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, the Sudanese government agreed to soon meet rebel groups who have refused to join peace talks.
If the agreement holds, it will be an important step in relaunching a peace process that has stalled since those key rebel factions rejected the widely unpopular Darfur peace agreement struck last year.
The so-called “nonsignatories” will meet in the first week of August to prepare a unified position for talks with the government in late August or September.
“We’ve made a serious step forward,” said Jan Eliasson, the United Nations’ special envoy for Sudan.
He and African Union representative Saleem Saleem have devised a blueprint to whittle down competing peace plans in order to have the government and multiple rebel factions discuss a single plan for peace in Darfur by the end of the summer.
After weeks of shuttle diplomacy, leaders from the five permanent members of the Security Council, the European Union and neighboring and donor nations gathered here to endorse the move.
At issue is the four-year conflict that has resulted in more than 200,000 deaths and the displacement of about 2 million people.
