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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

KENYA-SUDAN: President for talks with rebel leader

NAIROBI, 2 April 2003 (IRIN) - President Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan is due to hold talks with the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), John Garang, during a one-day state visit to Kenya on Wednesday, a Kenyan foreign ministry official told IRIN.

Al-Bashir was due to arrive in the capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday morning, said a statement issued by the Kenyan authorities. He would be met at the airport by Foreign Minister Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, and would then hold a meeting with President Mwai Kibaki at State House.

Al-Bashir's meeting with Garang would be the first between the two since a meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in July 2002, said an SPLM/A spokesman, Samson Kwaje.

"The talks will focus on the peace process in Sudan and ways of concentrating efforts towards achieving a permanent peace and bringing about development and stability in Sudan," Radio Omdurman quoted Sudanese External Relations Minister, Dr Mustafa Uthman Isma'il, as saying.

In a separate development, the peace talks between the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A were due to resume from 6 to 16 April, Kenya's special envoy to the talks, Lazarus Sumbeiywo, told IRIN. He said the talks would focus on security arrangements. "When we have peace, how the security of the country, and especially the security of the southern areas where fighting is going on, will be taken care of," he said.

The spokesman at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, told IRIN that issues such as the implementation of a comprehensive ceasefire, and the future status of the SPLM/A would also be discussed.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

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