KHARTOUM, 6 December 2003 — Southern rebel leaders made a historic visit to Khartoum yesterday that prompted a triumphant welcome from supporters and predictions by Sudanese President Omar Bashir that 20 years of civil war would end imminently.

Senior delegates from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement Army (SPLM-A) were greeted as they emerged from their plane by jubilant supporters who had broken through security barriers and swarmed onto the tarmac at Khartoum airport. “Welcome new Sudan,” they cheered in English.

The arrival of the delegates, who flew in on a goodwill mission to bolster peace talks with the Sudanese government, underscored quickening moves to end the civil war. They were greeted at the airport by Bashir’s adviser Mubarak Al-Fadel Mehdi, as well as two northern opposition parties. Bashir, who is due to meet the delegates, said earlier on national television that “all indications are that the war in southern Sudan (...) is reaching its end and only the finishing touches need to be put on a final peace agreement.”

Bashir expressed the hope that the new round of negotiations in Kenya “will be the final round that will help reach a just and permanent peace accord.” His government was set to resume high-level peace talks with the SPLA in Kenya later last evening while basking in the glow of an accord signed in Saudi Arabia with the umbrella National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Thursday’s accord, signed by Sudanese First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and NDA leader Muhammad Osman Mirghani, supports existing peace negotiations with the SPLA and calls for a new democratic Sudan benefiting all political parties.

The official Al-Anbaa daily welcomed the deal as “an important historic step for ending the suffering of the Sudanese people,” one that promoted dialogue over war as a solution to the nation’s divisions.

The state-run Omdurman Radio quoted Taha as saying after the agreement was signed in Jeddah that the peace process “is spacious enough to include everyone.” Mirghani had complained that northern opposition parties, some of whom joined the southern rebels in armed conflict with the Khartoum government, were excluded from the direct negotiations between the SPLA and the government in Kenya.

Mirghani was quoted as saying this is a “great day on which the nation is unified around the peace issue.” “All NDA factions, including the SPLA, have mandated me to sign the agreement,” he said. “The road for returning home has now been paved,” Mirghani said when asked whether or not he would return to Sudan after about 14 years of self-imposed exile spent in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea.

According to a copy of the agreement obtained by AFP, the two sides supported the peace process in Kenya, including points stipulating “the unity of Sudan, the right to self-determination and the relationship between religion and state.” Since 1983, a civil war has pitted the SPLA, representing mainly animists and Christians in the south, against successive Arab and Muslim governments in Khartoum, to the north.

It said the “the regime in Sudan must be democratic, multiparty, and presidential, and guaranteeing the peaceful change of power through free elections.”

They decided to meet again to implement the points of the agreement. Among the SPLA delegates arriving here were Abdel Aziz Helou, the official in charge of the central Nuba mountains region, spokesman Yasser Arman, and Bagan Amoum, who is also secretary general of the NDA.