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SUDAN: GOV’T REJECTS DARFUR REBEL'S CALLS FOR ONE-ON-ONE NEGOTIATIONS November 10, 2008
(SomaliNet) In what creates a stalemate in the early stages of a new peace push, Sudan on Sunday rejected a Darfur rebel group's calls for one-on-one negotiations.
On Friday, the powerful rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) demanded direct talks with Khartoum and said it would not go to a planned peace conference in Qatar, involving a large number of Darfur's fractured insurgent movements.
However, the Sudanese government officials on Sunday told state media they would not hold individual negotiations with separate groups and said they were determined to find a "comprehensive" solution to the five-year conflict.
"We will not accept because we had bad experiences in such kind of talks," said Gutbi Al-Mahdi, a senior official from the ruling National Congress Party.
Gutbi said he was referring to the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement which faltered when only one Darfur rebel faction agreed to sign it.
Meanwhile, international experts say more than 200,000 people have died since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against government forces in 1993, accusing it of neglect.
The Arab League asked Qatar to organise a peace conference earlier this year.
Many commentators saw the initiative as a way to deflect moves by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, accusing him of genocide and other war crimes in Darfur. Arab and African governments have opposed the global court's plan, saying it would ruin efforts for a negotiated peace.
JEM officials met a high-level Qatari delegation on the Sudan-Chad border on Thursday to discuss the plan. They rejected any Arab League involvement, saying the organisation was biased, and said they would not go to a planned Doha conference because talks involving all Darfur's movements would be too cumbersome.
But the rebel negotiators said they were still open to Qatar independently mediating negotiations with Khartoum.
The Doha plan is the latest in a series of troubled efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict. JEM, which launched an unprecedented attack on Khartoum in May, also boycotted the last round of peace talks in Libya in 2007.-Reuters