Former Sudanese rebels to rejoin unity cabinet

by Mohamed Hasni Wed Dec 12, 10:53 AM ET

KHARTOUM (AFP) - North and south Sudanese leaders said on Wednesday they had resolved almost all their differences and that the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement would soon rejoin the unity cabinet.

The SPLM led by First Vice President Salva Kiir walked out of government in October complaining that the north was failing to implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

The move sparked fears of a resumption of fighting, but Kiir and President Omar al-Beshir eked out an agreement during talks late on Tuesday with the only remaining disagreement being the fate of the oil-rich area of Abiye.

"This is a great achievement," said Dirdiri Mohammed Ahmed, a member of Beshir's National Congress Party.

Abiye "is a complicated question whose resolution requires a lot of efforts and we hope that it will be resolved by December 31 (or) that there will be an agreement on how to resolve it," he said.

SPLM official Yasser Armane said that an agreement to accelerate the application of the CPA along a specific timetable "for the first time gives both sides the means to do it."

The two sides will convene a congress of national reconciliation tasked with organising the redeployment of military forces, creating a joint oil field protection force and financing a census, Armane said.

Asked when SPLM ministers might rejoin the government, Armane said that "politically the matter has been resolved, only administrative matters and procedures remain for them to go back to work."

The NCP's Ahmed Harun said earlier that the decisions would be put into action after they were signed as presidential decrees.

Relations between Khartoum and the south have been increasingly unstable and a first round of talks aimed at resolving the crisis broke down on November 11.

The CPA ended Africa's longest-running civil war that killed at least 1.5 million people.

The deal provides for a six-year transition period in which the south would enjoy regional autonomy and participate in a national unity government ahead of a 2011 referendum on the region's future status.

Armane also said that improving north-south relations would also create "better conditions" for a resolution of the crisis in western Sudan's Darfur where civil war has been raging for almost five years.

The partnership will also make "union more attractive" for southerners ahead of the 2011 referendum on whether to created an independent southern state.