An official with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediation told AFP that Taha and Garang “started face-to-face talks late yesterday afternoon on outstanding issues” in Naivasha, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Nairobi.
The talks are taking place amid intense pressure, notably from Washington, and heightened expectations that a comprehensive peace accord should be reached before the end of December.
This round of talks behind closed doors will seek to solve the three outstanding issues – power-sharing, distribution of wealth and the status of three disputed regions – Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and Abyei.
The conflict, which started in 1983, has claimed more than 1,5-million lives and, together with recurrent bouts of famine, displaced more than four-million others.
The mostly Christian and animist south has been battling to end the domination of the arabised and Muslim north in a war that has been fuelled by vast oil reserves in the south. – Sapa-AFP.
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