Sudan’s opposition in talks with US delegation

A senior US delegation on Thursday held talks with the leadership of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The meeting focused on the US proposal on the humanitarian issues.

The leader of the SPLM-N, Malik Agar, told Dabanga Radio today that the movement's leadership delegation held two sessions of dialogue with the US on what he called the US-Sudanese proposal, the latest of which was on Thursday.

He explained that the delegation of the movement presented eight points to improve the proposal at the discussion table with the American delegation headed by Paul Stevens, director of the Office of the US envoy and the current official on the Sudan file in the US State Department.

He said the discussion appeared to be a step-by-step approach to the final director.

"I think they have enough flexibility and we have flexibility if we take into account our improvements."

Agar said his movement promised the US delegation to continue to present proposals and promised at the same time to hold more sessions to continue the dialogue.

He described the dialogue as constructive and accepted the proposals made by the movement from the American side with a warm welcome

Improvements

Agar said that the SPLM-N position has not yet changed from what he called the US-Sudanese proposal. He explained that since the meeting in Paris earlier this year, the movement has made improvements to the proposal via seven adjustable points, but the former American Union administration says that it did not have sufficient at the end of its term.

He said the movement had said at the time that it was ready to discuss the proposal but it had some reservations and concerns that require treatment, which was written by the American administration at the time.

He explained that the current development is that the director of the Office of the former envoy came himself and showed flexibility to discuss and welcomed it

For his part, Mubarak Ardol, the official spokesman for the meeting with the American delegation, also discussed the lifting of sanctions and the need to include the normalisation of relations issues of comprehensive peace and democratization as the main demands of the Sudanese people.

Ardol said in a statement yesterday that the delegation of the SPLM-N raised during yesterday’s meeting the government air raids in the Nuba Mountains aimed at terrorising civilians and stopping them to prepare the land for agriculture in the coming rainy season, which is a flagrant violation of the government's obligations.

He said that the movement's delegation stressed the need to raise these issues in the framework of reviews of normalisation issues with the government.

AUHIP consultations begin in Khartoum

Representatives of the African Union High Level Implantation (AUHIP) commissioner, Thabo Mbeki, began consultations in Khartoum yesterday with Sudanese government and opposition officials on the course of negotiations, the peace process in Addis Ababa and national dialogue.

Ambassador Mahmoud Kahn, representative of the African Union, and Lissan Johans, representative of the IGAD organization in Khartoum, led a series of separate meetings, including the government delegation headed by Ibrahim Mahmoud, the Liberal Party headed by Mayada Sawareldahab, and the Future Forces Alliance led by Ghazi Salaheldin Atabani.

Hassan Ibrahim, spokesman for the Future Forces Alliance, said that the meeting came within the framework of meetings with various political forces to listen to different views on the political process in Sudan.