Mogadishu, June 24: The leader of the Darfur militant group JEM says peace talks between opposition groups and the Sudanese government will get nowhere if his group is excluded.
“Peace is impossible without the JEM,” Justice and Equality Movement leader Khalil Ibrahim told Al-Jazeera television when asked about the negotiations between the Khartoum government and the Liberty and Justice Movement being held in the Qatari capital Doha.
“What is going on in Doha is a falsification of what our people want” and “what comes out of it will not be peace,” AFP quoted Ibrahim as saying on Wednesday.
“The Doha process has gone off course, and represents nothing more than what the Sudanese government wants,” he added.
The Liberty and Justice Movement and the Sudanese government, which reached a framework accord in March establishing a ceasefire, will hold direct negotiations through five committees, said a statement issued by Qatari Foreign Minister Ahmed Abdullah al-Mahmud and Jibril Bassole, a mediator for the United Nations and the African Union.
The two sides initiated indirect talks on June 7, but without JEM involvement.
JEM signed a framework accord in February in Doha, but JEM-Khartoum talks later stalled and a deadline set under the accord for completing the peace deal passed on March 15 without agreement.
——-Agencies