JEM downplays senior leaders’ return to Khartoum

Yesterday senior leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Abubakar Hamid Nour and Suleiman Jamous returned to Khartoum but the Movement’s headquarters has downplayed the significance of their return.

Abubakar Hamid Nour, a senior leader of the JEM told reporters at Khartoum airport that their return comes within the framework of their bias towards the option of peace and national dialogue. Their return is in accordance with a peace initiative put forward in the name of the movement mediated by the President of Chad Idris Debbi who carried their initiative to President Al Bashir.

He said that with their return, they are “laying down new culture in the achievement of peace, security and stability in Sudan with a purely Sudanese will and without any external interference”.

However the JEM leadership itself downplayed the return of Abubakar and others to Khartoum.

Yesterday Jibril Adam Bilal, the spokesman for the movement, said in a statement “what is being arranged in [the Chad capital of] N’Djamena these days is not a peace process that involves serious negotiations according to internationally accepted rules. Rather, it is a mere process of surrender by individuals who do not represent the movement’s position or institutions.