KHARTOUM, 9 October 2005 — The European Union foreign policy chief said he was confident Sudan was executing a southern peace deal after his first meeting with a new coalition government yesterday. Javier Solana met First Vice President Salva Kiir, successor to John Garang was killed in a helicopter crash three weeks after taking office following the January peace deal.
Some analysts had feared Kiir, previously a secessionist, would reject Garang’s vision of a unified Sudan, a charge Kiir has denied. The southern deal enshrines wealth and power sharing, democratic transformation and a southern referendum on secession after six years. “My feelings are very constructive and very positive,” Solana said after meeting Kiir.
“The disappearance of Dr. Garang ... made things a little bit more difficult in the beginning but he (Kiir) has committed himself to do it (implementation).”
“He feels himself not only a man from the south ... but also a Sudanese who wants to construct a Sudan which is prosperous and united. And that’s the most important thing we had to hear from him,” Solana told reporters. The EU is among biggest donors of humanitarian and development aid to Sudan. Solana is there to review the deal’s implementation and the separate conflict in the troubled western Darfur region, not covered by the agreement. Darfur peace talks have faltered as violence escalated in recent weeks.
The autonomous southern Sudanese government is due to be formed this week. On Saturday, a spokesman for the largest southern militia opposed to Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), said it had agreed with the movement to participate in government and form joint military units.
The pro-government South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF) say they have about 50,000 fighters. They fought the SPLM during than two decades of civil war in the south.
The European Union also urged Sudan’s government to work harder to bring peace to Darfur, the troubled western region where more than two years of unrest has led to a massive humanitarian crisis. “He has committed himself” to ending the Darfur conflict, Solana told reporters of Kiir. EU diplomats said Kiir told Solana that ending the Darfur turmoil was key to resolving other ethnic crises in this vast country.
The diplomats, who asked not to be named, said Kiir expressed concern that Darfur was having a spillover effect on ethnic tensions in eastern Sudan. Solana and Kiir discussed the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in January, which ended a 21-year north-south civil war. Solana also was to have met President Omar Bashir yesterday but the meeting was canceled due to an illness in the family, EU diplomats said.
