NAIROBI, 10 May 2003 — The government of Sudan and southern rebels are this weekend due to open a fifth round of peace talks aimed at ending decades of civil war in Sudan, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) secretariat announced in Nairobi yesterday. “The opening session of talks between the government and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) start at 9:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) at the eastern Kenyan town of Machakos on Saturday,” an IGAD secretariat official told AFP by telephone.

“Key topics for negotiations at the talks, to be chaired by IGAD chief mediator Gen. Lazaro Sumbeiywo, will be wealth-sharing and security arrangements,” the official added. Other major issues expected to come up for negotiation at the talks are oil revenues, the central bank and Sudan’s currency, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army spokesman Yasser Arman said on Wednesday. The meeting followed three days of separate consultations between Sudanese government and the SPLA delegations with the IGAD mediators here since Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Khartoum has agreed with the southern rebel movement to allow aid shipments to resume over river and land routes to regions in southern Sudan, a press report said yesterday. The agreement was reached Thursday following talks among representatives of the government, the SPLA and the United Nations in Nairobi, Khartoum’s Al-Anbaa daily said. River shipments from Kosti, in central Sudan, to Juba in the far south, are to resume from Monday.

The two sides also agreed that aid be delivered by road through the southeastern Upper Nile state and southwestern Bahr El-Ghazal state, Al-Anbaa said, quoting an official at Sudan’s Embassy in Nairobi. They were unable to agree on the use of railway lines, but would continue to discuss the matter, the daily said.

In another development, Sudanese authorities have shut the English-language Khartoum Monitor daily newspaper, saying it failed to pay a fine for publishing several controversial articles, the newspaper said. An official at the Khartoum Monitor, which has had frequent run-ins with the authorities over articles about religion and the civil war in southern Sudan, said security forces had closed the newspaper’s offices on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if it was a temporary or permanent measure.

The Monitor official said the paper’s management had been ordered to appear in court today.