NAIVASHA, Kenya, 8 January 2004 — Sudanese government and rebel officials overcame a significant hurdle toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement yesterday by signing a protocol on how to share the nation’s wealth, one of the major issues in the 20-year civil war.

Sharing the revenue from 250,000 barrels of oil per day coming from the south was one of the crucial issues in Africa’s longest running armed conflict.

The deal leaves only the make-up of a transitional administration, the fate of three disputed areas in central Sudan and whether the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, should be governed under Islamic law remaining.

“It’s a historic day in the process of peace in Sudan,” said Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. “This moment in which we have signed a wealth-sharing agreement spells an end to the long episode of war and conflict in our country.”

Both Taha and John Garang, leader of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, said the agreement proved they were committed to reaching a final deal to end the conflict, in which more than 2 million people have perished, mainly through war-induced famine.

Garang said he hoped a comprehensive agreement will be reached this month, and promised to start a process to release all prisoners of war as a gesture of good will.

“It is a major achievement that will take us closer to a just and lasting peace in our country,” Garang said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the agreement was “a further significant step toward peace in Sudan.”

Analysts and the chief mediator, Lazaro Sumbeiywo, however, cautioned that the outstanding issues remain complex.

“The more they finish one issue, the more complicated it becomes because there are fewer options,” Sumbeiywo told The Associated Press.

Under the wealth-sharing deal, the warring parties agreed to split net oil revenue from southern Sudan 50-50 during a six-year transition period, set up a monetary system which will allow for Islamic banking in the north and Western banking in the south, and to introduce a new currency.

Currently, Sudan’s all major banks are run under Islamic law, which forbids most forms of interest.

The latest war erupted in 1983 when southern rebels from the mainly animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Arab and Muslim north, marking the collapse of a 1972 peace deal that had ended an earlier southern rebellion.