Sudanese Govt 'ready for cease-fire'

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir today said his government was ready for a cease-fire with rebel forces at the start of peace talks scheduled for next month in Libya over the conflict in Darfur.

“We have announced we are available (to put in place) a cease-fire with the start of the negotiations to create a positive climate,” al-Bashir said at a news conference in Rome following talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi.

Khartoum has regularly agreed to cease-fires but all have been quickly breached by the parties involved in the conflict. Some rebel leaders have demanded that hostilities stop as a condition to participating in the talks in Tripoli, set to start on October 27.

“We hope that the negotiations in Tripoli will be the last ones and that they will bring a final peace,” al-Bashir said, speaking through a translator.

Al-Bashir, who came to power in 1989 in a military and Islamic coup, was in Rome for talks with top Italian officials and Pope Benedict XVI. It is a rare, high-profile visit to Western Europe that has raised concern from human rights advocates and some politicians.

The visit takes place a few weeks before the expected deployment of an international peacekeeping force to try to improve the security situation in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur.

More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003.

Sudan’s government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge Khartoum denies.