Sudan leaders pledge to avoid return to north-south war

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sudanese rivals from the north and south of the country pledged here Wednesday to implement a fragile 2005 peace deal and avoid reigniting Africa's longest civil war.

Delegates from Sudan's ruling party and former rebels from the south added that they hope to preserve national unity after taking part Tuesday in an international conference aimed at bolstering the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

But the two sides still differ on preparations for national elections in February and a referendum on the future of southern Sudan in January 2011 -- milestones that the US-sponsored conference wants to ensure go smoothly.

"There's no going back to war. We are not going to fight again," Bakri Saed, a ruling National Congress Party (NCP) delegate to the conference, told a gathering at the United States Institute of Peace think tank.

"So we don't have an alternative other than the CPA," he told the gathering as Scott Gration, the retired Air Force major general who is US President Barack Obama's envoy for Sudan, sat next to him.

Gration reiterated his belief that long-term peace in Sudan is possible, saying he would not have taken the job if he thought otherwise.

Malik Agar Eyre, the head of delegation for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), said the costs of war are too high for a return to conflict.

"There is no intention of us to go back to war," he said.

But the SPLM questioned the results of a census designed to determine voting numbers for the elections, and the NCP rejected SPLM charges it is exploiting rivalries among southern armed groups.

The SPLM's Yasir Arman warned that the Arab- and Muslim-dominated establishment in Khartoum risked provoking the south's secession in 2011 if it fails to implement the terms of the CPA in "good faith."

The two sides have yet to secure agreements on border demarcations, wealth-sharing and power-sharing.

Arman said the southerners -- who are ethnic African and mostly non-Muslim -- have not seen "sufficient signals" from the establishment that it has begun to recognize and accept Sudan's ethnic diversity.

Gration told the international conference on Tuesday it must "ensure that we're able to create an environment where the parties in Sudan can fully implement the CPA and achieve a long term, a lasting peace for their people."

Under a deal that ended a two-decade civil war, the longest in Africa, the south has a six-year transitional period of regional autonomy and takes part in a unity government until the 2011 referendum on self-determination.