(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-02 10:28

KHARTOUM -- Spokesman of the Sudanese government delegation for Darfur peace negotiations Abuzaid Hassan announced on Thursday that the next round of direct negotiation between the government and Darfur rebels would be held in December.

UN vehicles are parked outside the new headquarters of the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in north Darfur's main city of El-Fasher, Sudan, on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007. The facilities were inaugurated on Wednesday, a key administrative step toward merging the UN's peacekeeping efforts in the war-torn western Sudanese region with those of the overstretched African Union. [Agencies]

"The direct negotiations between the Sudanese government and the (rebel) movements opposing the Abuja agreement will start in December," the spokesman said as quoted by the official SUNA news agency.

The Abuja agreement, which is officially called the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), was signed by the Sudanese government and a main rebel faction in the Nigerian capital on May 5, 2006, with other rebel groups refusing to sign it.

He said that the first stage of the peace talks, which have been held in Libya's coastal city of Sirte since last Saturday, was aimed at making assessment.

He added that the parties taking part in the Sirte peace talks reached a consensus that the negotiations should continue and the dialogue should not stop.

Hassan noted that  Darfur rebel groups had been given an adjournment of three to four weeks in order to make a united platform on the negotiations before the direct talks could be held in the next stage.

"The government delegation considers the first stage as a progress in view of the participation of a number of armed movements in it," the spokesman said, adding that the absence of some other rebel movements had prevented the continuity of the negotiations.

However, the spokesman did not say where the next round of negotiations would be held.

Mediators of the United Nations and the African Union (AU) have suggested that the future peace talks would be carried out in Sirte or another city inside or outside Libya.

Sudan's Rayaam daily reported on Thursday that the UN-AU mediation team had finished the first stage of negotiations in Sirte and that most of the delegations taking part in the negotiations were leaving the Libyan city since Wednesday.

Only representatives of the negotiating parties will stay in Sirte in order to conduct consultations with each other as well as with other different parties according to what had been agreed, the most popular newspaper in Sudan said.

The Sudanese government started the peace negotiation in Sirte on Saturday with only seven rebel groups, which are termed by local media as "internet movements" because they enjoy little influence among the Darfur people and can only been found through internet.

Eight rebel factions, including the most important ones, are staying away from the Sire talks, casting a pall over the bid to end the four-year conflict in the western Sudanese region.