Sudan's southern rebels reiterated Friday that they would participate in an Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative only if it took into account four issues they consider key to the resolution of the conflict, said reports.
A spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), Samson L. Kwaje, named in a statement the four issues as separation of state and religion, the right of self-determination and the creation of an interim constitution, with an interim government based on it.
"The SPLM/A shall support mediation efforts by any country to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Sudan. All parties to the conflict (The SPLM/SPLA, the Government of Sudan and the National Democratic Alliance) have accepted the IGAD Declaration of Principles (DOP). It is therefore necessary for any new peace initiative on Sudan to take the IGAD DOP into account," Kwaje said in the statement, cited by SudaneseOnline.com.
He added that the SPLM welcomed the joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative, and urged the "countries of this initiative to incorporate into their initiative the four issues that were raised to them by the NDA in its Cairo meeting of June, 2001."
The SPLA, the rebel force in the mainly animist and Christian south, has been fighting successive Arab and Muslim governments in Khartoum since 1983 in a bid for self-determination for the region.
The Egyptian-Libyan peace plan includes calls for a plural democracy in Sudan and a national peace conference to revise the Constitution of 1998 - Albawaba.com
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