The Sudanese government is seeking to achieve separate cease-fire agreements for the war-torn areas of Darfur and the Two Areas (Blue Nile and South Kordofan), President Omar Al Bashir said at a press conference in Khartoum on Sunday.

The Sudanese president stressed that the government will never agree with the unification of the peace negotiations of Darfur and the Two Areas.

He explained that Presidential Assistant Ibrahim Ghandour is the head of the negotiation team dealing with the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, while Amin Hassan Omar is the negotiator for Darfur issues.

“Dr Ibrahim Ghandour will not negotiate any other issue, just as Dr Amin Hassan Omar will solely deal with the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur,” said the president.

The African Union Peace and Security Council has called for the negotiations on Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan to be separate but ‘synchronized’.

In a September communiqué the council said, “the negotiations on the cessation of hostilities for the Two Areas and for Darfur should be conducted in a synchronized manner.”

The peace talks on the Two Areas with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, under the auspices of the AU High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), were adjourned on 17 November. The chairman of the AUHIP team, Thabo Mbeki, expressed his confidence that “we are not too far from concluding an agreement”.

The parallel negotiations on Darfur stalled last Thursday, as the delegations of the government and the two main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, failed to reach an agreement on the agenda.

On Saturday, AUHIP officials informed the two delegations of an adjournment of the Darfur peace talks for a week, saying that Mbeki would leave for a three-day visit to Germany for discussions with government officials there.

Related:

Timeline: Build-up to the current ‘Two Areas’ talks (15 Nov.)