From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Aug 19 2009 - 07:01:15 EDT
Envoy Gration Takes Peace Mission to Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt
By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer
19 August 2009
Washington - U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration travels to Southern
Sudan to help complete an agreement between the Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM) and the National Congress Party (NCP), which is part of a
broader 2005 peace agreement, the State Department announced.
Gration is traveling to Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt August 17-24. His visit
comes as the United States is nearing completion of a new policy on Sudan
and the troubled Darfur region.
"I think we are getting close to the point where we will announce a new
policy approach on Sudan," Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley said
during the daily press briefing August 17. "I would expect that in the next
couple of weeks. Also, I think you'll see the fruits of General Gration's
labor emerge here very shortly."
Gration will travel to Juba, Southern Sudan, to complete an agreement on a
bilateral action plan between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the
National Congress Party, which is intended to complete implementation of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Gration told Congress recently that the goal is to conclude an agreement
that will allow the Sudanese to return to their homes and resume their lives
in safety and security. Previous peace efforts have faltered, Gration
testified, and the United States has learned from those experiences. He laid
out for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee what he called a
"whole-of-government approach" for Sudan.
President Obama has made enhancing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement a
significant U.S. foreign policy objective, Gration said, and that is part of
the reason he named a special envoy to negotiate agreements and further the
fragile peace process.
The United States is engaging with the fragmented movements in Darfur to
bring them to the peace table with a single voice, is working with Libya and
Egypt to end the proxy war between Chad and Sudan, and is supporting the
full deployment of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur to
protect Darfuri civilians, Gration said.
The second aspect of the emerging U.S. strategy involves sustaining peace
between the North and the South, he said. In January 2005, the Sudanese
government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement signed the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending a 22-year war. However, Gration said,
four and a half years after the agreement, peace remains fragile.
Sudan will hold national elections in April 2010 and referendums in Southern
Sudan and the Abyei region in January 2011. Gration said the U.S. strategy
calls for a functioning and stable Sudanese government, and one that will
either include a government of Southern Sudan or coexist peacefully with an
independent Southern Sudan. The United States is seeking to help the South
improve its security capacity and become politically and economically viable
if it chooses independence, he added.
Finally, Gration said the United States seeks increased and enhanced
counterterrorism cooperation with the Sudanese, and to promote regional
security.
On the trip, Gration will not go to Khartoum, but may meet with members of
the government while in Egypt, Crowley said.
"In Egypt, he will meet not only with Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit,
but also Sudanese Presidential Adviser Ghazi Salahuddin, Libyan Secretary of
the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International
Cooperation Musa Kusa, and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa,"
Crowley said.
"So General Gration, in the conduct of his duties, does meet with officials
of the Sudanese government, as you would expect in terms of dealing with
them on a range of issues, both what's happening in Darfur and with the
North-South dialogue. He will not meet with President [Omar al-] Bashir,"
Crowley added.
Gration will also travel to Malakal in Southern Sudan to visit a Joint
Integrated Unit regional headquarters to assess the capacity of these units
to conduct security; he will continue bilateral discussions with the SPLM in
Juba and with the NCP in Khartoum.
Crowley said he will then travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to resume talks
with the leadership of key Darfuri armed movements on unification efforts in
support of the Doha peace process. While in Ethiopia, Gration will also meet
with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
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