CAIRO, 18 January 2005 — The Sudanese government and National Democratic Alliance signed a political agreement that should see the exiled opposition umbrella group reintegrated into Sudan’s political life, diplomats said yesterday. “The two parties have reached an agreement on all political, constitutional and legislative questions defining the steps toward democratic change in Sudan,” said Sudan’s charge d’affaires in Cairo, Mohammed Abdallah, quoted by Egypt’s news agency MENA.

A final accord between the government and Cairo-based group is to be signed on Feb. 12 in the Egyptian capital, said NDA Vice President Adel Rahman Saeed. The agreement struck late Sunday envisages lifting the state of emergency in place since 1989 and setting up a joint commission to look at how to reintegrate the NDA into Sudan’s political life, a statement said.

The two sides also intend to set up a commission to reintegrate 3,000 armed rebels from the east of Sudan on the border with Eritrea back into regular Sudanese forces. However, the statement did not offer any timetable for these measures. The text of the accord calls for the establishment of a “democratic and pluralist” regime that respects “democratic freedoms and human rights”.

NDA spokesman Khatem Es-Sir also lauded the accord, saying that it “brings a practical solution to the question of democratic change.” The agreement puts an end to 15 years of friction between the Khartoum government and the opposition group headed by Mohamed Osman Al-Marghani, a key figure in modern Sudanese history who is now expected to return to Khartoum after years in exile.

The signing of the accord also marks another key step in efforts to bring peace to all of Africa’s largest country after the southern SPLM A earlier this month signed a historic deal to end the longest running civil war in the continent. However, the goal of peace throughout Sudan is still far off.

Conflict between the government and rebels continues to rage in the western Darfur province, having claimed the lives of 70,000 people and displaced 1.5 million others since February 2003. The talks leading up to the agreement in Cairo with the country’s largest exiled political bloc were held under the auspices of Egypt, whose intelligence chief Omar Suleiman took part in the signing ceremony.

The final phase of talks with the government negotiating team — led by powerful Vice President Ali Osman Taha — started last June and then resumed in September with an agenda focused on the constitution and legal rights. The NDA is a coalition of northern organizations which also includes the southern SPLM/A. It is seen as a rival to the Al-Umma Party of Sadek Al-Mahdi — Sudan’s legal opposition — and the outlawed Popular Congress of jailed Islamist Hassan Turabi. President Omar Bashir wants the regular opposition reintegrated into political life but to keep the Islamists excluded.

In Khartoum, the chief mediator in brokering the SPLM/A agreement, Kenyan General Lazaros Sumbeiywo, started talks yesterday with Bashir on implementing the peace accord in the south.