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Sudan Peace Summit Under Preparation
KHARTOUM, Aug 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Contacts are underway to prepare a summit between the leaders of Sudan, Egypt and Libya, in order to spur efforts to end Sudan's 18-year civil war, a Sudanese official said.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters Wednesday that contacts would enable a summit to be held "soon" between Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi, "with the participation of some Arab and African nations."
Sudan has accepted a joint Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative aimed at bringing the Khartoum government together with opposition factions to discuss ways of ending the war and forming a transitional government.
The Egyptian-Libyan brokered conference will be held soon, a Libyan official announced in Cairo earlier in July.
Egypt and Libya "will kick off" talks with Sudanese parties to set a date for the conference, said the head of Libya's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Suleiman al-Shahumi, after meeting in Cairo with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher.
Sudan's Beshir said Monday that he would require opposition parties to enter a "political agreement" before they join a transitional government aimed at helping end the civil war.
He said, "a political agreement precedes formation of the transitional government," with his ruling National Congress, a provision not included in an Egyptian-Libyan initiative aimed at ending the fighting.
"We are not going to object to participation in the government by any political party that agrees with us and we are prepared to admit such a party to the council of ministers or any other position," Beshir told a gathering of student members of his party.
"We will never hand it [power] over to those residing abroad," referring to opposition parties based in Cairo and Asmara.
However, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella movement for southern and northern opposition groups, has demanded that any peace process should also focus on the principle of self-determination for the south, and the separation of religion and government.
"I strongly feel that any initiative aimed at resolving the Sudanese issue cannot succeed fully if the problem of the south is not addressed," Vice Chairman of the South Sudan Coordination Council (SSCC), Theophilus Ochang, was quoted as saying by the independent Khartoum Monitor newspaper.
Ochang, whose SSCC oversees the administration of Sudan's 10 southern provinces, complained that the Egyptian-Libyan initiative ignores the right to self-determination and fails to identify the relationship between religion and the state.
Libyan leader Qaddafi, who went on a three-day visit to the Sudan in July, vowed to settle the country's three-decade civil war.
"Peace must be found in Sudan as the continuation of fighting only serves the interests of the enemies of Sudan and Africa," Qaddafi, whose country is co-sponsoring a Sudanese peace initiative with Egypt, told reporters.
He added that African leaders he had met during his recent African tour, including those of Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, pledged to contribute to the peace efforts.
Qaddafi said that all northern and southern Sudanese parties he saw during his visit had expressed willingness to negotiate within the framework of the Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative, and added that he had not seen "any signs of oppression or racial discrimination" in Sudan.
During his visit to Khartoum, he announced his intention of creating a fund for the rehabilitation of southern Sudan, which has been torn by an 18-year civil war.
He pledged that Libya would be the first contributor to the fund and that he would urge other African countries to contribute.
"Experts will in the near future be sent to southern Sudan via Uganda to explore fields of investment there," Qaddafi said without explaining why he would send the experts via Uganda.
Qaddafi, who arrived in Khartoum Tuesday for talks on the initiative aimed at restoring peace in Africa's largest country, told his Sudanese counterpart, Beshir, that there was "a foreign conspiracy" aimed at continuing the civil war in southern Sudan.
The maverick leader and leading advocate of African unity described it as "an imperialist program for weakening Sudan and the African continent by instigating wars and conflicts."
In a statement issued by the Sudanese al-Baath party and published by the party's paper, al-Hadaf, al-Baath said that Egypt's motives for resolving the conflicts in southern Sudan poised a threat towards her own interest, which includes the Nile as a resource.
The statement said that Egypt is interested in regaining its position in the region, especially towards the Sudan. Libya is also interested in reinforcing its current role in the African Unity, the statement said.
On another note, the Egyptian official newspaper, Al Ahram, said that Iran and South Africa also supported the Egyptian-Libyan initiative.
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