Darfur talks suspended for 2 months

khartoum: Qatari-brokered talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels have been postponed for two months, mainly because of disagreements over the release of prisoners, a senior rebel said yesterday.
The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the most active rebel group, had signed an agreement with the government in February intended to pave the way for a peace conference to end six years of war.
Talks broke down after an international arrest warrant was issued against Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir in March on war crimes charges. They resumed in May in Doha, with envoys US, British, Russian, Chinese and French envoys attending.
“The talks are suspended or postponed … the goodwill agreement has to be implemented before we go forward,” senior JEM official Tahir Al Feki said.
“The question of the war prisoners has to be settled,” Feki added, referring to disagreements over exchanges.
Sudan wants a ceasefire agreement in place as well as the inclusion of smaller rebel groups in negotiations, while JEM prefers to focus on a prisoner exchange.But Sudanese authorities reject this for fear of then having to confront released rebels on the ground, a mediator said.
Last month, Khartoum appointed Ghazi Salaheddin the new pointman for Darfur, an appointment rebels describe as a “facelift.” “We dont’ see any change of Sudan’s policy toward Darfur,” Feki said.
The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels in Darfur rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.
Meanwhile, The US State Department reiterated yesterday that it still considers government-inspired violence against inhabitants of Sudan’s western Darfur region as genocide.
The Sudanese government had seized upon remarks by the Obama administration’s special envoy for Sudan Scott Gration on Wednesday as suggesting that Darfur genocide did not occur.
Gration said from the same State Department podium that what is being seen in the vast Western Sudan region now are “the remnants of genocide” and “the consequences of genocide, the results of genocide.”
Obama himself had spoken recently of “ongoing genocide” in Darfur, and the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, a Cabinet-level official, repeated in a speech on Monday that genocide is being waged.
Human rights groups working to end the dying in Darfur fear for the survival of 2.5 million people huddled in refugee camps if the Obama administration doesn’t put on record its plans to bring security to them.