NAIROBI, November 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sudan's government and southern rebels, fighting since 1983, agreed Monday, November 18, to extend a truce signed in October 2002 and to continue peace talks until the end of March, according to a rebel source.

George Garang, an official of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army told Agence France-Presse (AFP), that his movement and the government had formally agreed to renew a cessation of hostilities pact first signed on October 15 until March 31, 2003.

He added that both parties had also signed agreements about wealth-sharing and the structures of government.

The statement came less than 24 hours after a rebel official told AFP that peace talks between Sudan's government and rebels fighting for the self-determination of the south of the country have deadlocked on the issue of the sharing of power and resources.

The power and wealth sharing arrangements under negotiation will apply during a six-year period of autonomy for the south envisaged in a deal reached in July between the government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

"There is a deadlock on the issue of the vice president," said the SPLM/A official, speaking by telephone from the southern Kenyan town of Machakos, the venue of the talks, on condition of anonymity.

"We had proposed that there be a vice president from the south, who could take over leadership in the event of the presidency falling vacant, but Khartoum has refused," he added. The President would be a northerner.

He said both the SPLM/A and the government delegations would move from Machakos, where the phased negotiations have been held since June, to the Kenyan capital Nairobi for further discussions Monday and Tuesday, November 18, 19 on power and wealth sharing.

Khartoum has also rejected an SPLM/A demand that 60 percent of oil revenues be handed over to an envisaged southern administration, according to the official.

The government instead offered only 10 percent of oil revenues to the south, he added.

The government's proposal on the vice Presidency was that the posts of three vice Presidents be created, but insisted that a southerner could not become the first vice President.

The first vice President would automatically become President in the event of the post suddenly falling vacant, according to the SPLM/A official.

There was also disagreement on the issue of the location of the capital city.

The rebels asked for a secular capital, even recommending the partitioning Khartoum into a secular sector, which would be considered the capital, and the rest of the city where Islamic Sharia laws would apply.

At the heart of the conflict is the question of how to share power and resources between the Arab, Islamic government in the north and the south.

The parties to the conflict agreed last month to observe a truce for the duration of the peace talks.