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SIRTE, Libya: The United Nations and African Union
said on Sunday there was no question of interrupting the Darfur
peace process launched in Libya on Saturday despite calls by rebels
there to do so.
“I refuse to state that the
peace process is interrupted,” UN Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson said
at the end of Sunday’s session. “The train has left the station
for the road to peace.
“The question is now many
passengers will get on the train. We are ready to receive them,”
he told a news conference in reference to rebel groups that are
boycotting the Sirte talks.
Eliasson said mediators would
continue closed-door talks on Monday between rebel movements present
at the talks and the Sudanese government delegation in an effort to
end four years of violence in the western Sudanese region.
Earlier UN diplomats spoke of a
three-phase peace process, the first being advance consultation.
This would be followed by internal consensus building and then by
actual peace negotiations.
Although the Khartoum government
declared a unilateral ceasefire at the start of the meeting on
Saturday, key rebel groups have boycotted the talks.
“We can’t talk about success
or failure at this stage. The most important thing is that the
process has begun,” AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said earlier.
Mezni told AFP that the chief
negotiators, the UN’s Taye Zerihoun and the AU’s Sam Ibok, still
hope to bring the boycotting rebel factions to the table.
“We will now begin the process
of planning the way forward,” AU envoy to Darfur Salim Ahmed Salim
told reporters. “The next step will be how to create the necessary
conditions which will enable the process of negotiations to start.
“We should not try to put fixed deadlines but at the same time we
cannot afford an endless process,” he said.
Only six minor rebel groups have
turned up in Sirte and they have sent “second rank”
representatives with little power, a UN diplomat acknowledged.
In a joint statement, the six
factions called on the mediators to set a timeframe for further
negotiations with the rebel groups that are boycotting the peace
talks to try to persuade them to take part.
“We need an additional period
of time which will be set by the mediators to continue negotiations
with those who are absent and prepare the appropriate conditions”
for substantive talks, said the joint statement read by Tejeddine
Niem of the breakaway Justice and Equality Movement faction of Abu
Garda.
“To reach a just and
comprehensive peace . . . we want no significant armed group to be
sidelined,” the statement added.
“We are continuing our efforts
and contacts with our absent brothers to convince them to join the
peace talks so that we do not end up with an outcome like in
Abuja” in 2006, where one rebel group signed a peace deal with the
government and two other groups declined to do so.
African Union Peace and Security
Council commissioner Saeed Djinnit said, “everything will be done
in terms of reconciliation.
 --AFP
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