KHARTOUM, 17 February 2005 — Sudan said on Tuesday it would hold direct talks with the Beja Congress, the eastern opposition group that has carried out small-scale attacks to back its call for more power and resources for the impoverished region.
“There will be direct dialogue between us and the Beja over the issues of the east,” Federal Relations Minister Nafie Ali Nafie told reporters after a meeting between Beja and National Congress representatives in Kassala, 420 km east of Khartoum.
Nafie said a meeting would be held next week to establish the agenda for the talks with Beja Congress leaders in exile, but did not say when or where the negotiations themselves would take place. The government has already reached a peace agreement to end more than two decades of conflict with rebels in southern Sudan, a deal which analysts say could act as a model for ending the conflict in the western Darfur region and unrest in the east.
Last month, police killed at least 20 ethnic Beja in Port Sudan, on the east coast, when they opened fire on demonstrators preparing for a march to demand that the government start negotiations on sharing power and resources.
The shooting led to demonstrations in Port Sudan and Kassala and the arrest of dozens of protesters.
