Sudan Party Slams Ex-rebels Pullout From Government

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Sudan's National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omar al-Beshir on
Friday criticised the decision by former southern rebels to withdraw
from the Khartoum government, accusing them of selling out to foreign
interests.

"The heart of the problem is that a group within the SPLM wants to end
our partnership," the northern NCP's number two Nafie Ali Nafie told an
overnight news conference.

"This group thinks that in allying itself with foreign parties (the
United States) it can destroy our political project."

Former rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)
announced it was pulling out of the government on Thursday because of
what it called Khartoum's failure to honour a 2005 peace accord which
ended a more than two-decade civil war.

The SPLM said key problems were the failure to withdraw northern troops
from the south, the fate of the disputed oil-rich region of Abiye and
"the evolution of democracy in Sudan," adding that the group would
return to government once the differences were resolved.

Nafie acknowledged an "impasse" over Abiye but said 87.4 percent of
northern troops had pulled back from the south while southern forces had
only withdrawn 6.7 percent of their men from the north.

Another Congress leader said that in the main the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) signed by the two sides in 2005 was making good
progress.

Sayed al-Khatib said: "The main merit of the CPA is that it allowed for
war to stop. There has not been a single gunshot since 2005."

The south-north war had lasted 21 years and caused at least 1.5 million
casualties.

The withdrawal has hit preparations for talks due in Libya later this
month on the troubled western region of Darfur amid reports that
Khartoum forces and their allied Janjaweed militias have intensified
attacks on the rebels, including the SPLM - the only faction to have
signed a peace deal.

The October 27 talks in the Libyan resort of Syrte is the latest
international effort to end a four-year-old war which the UN estimates
has killed at least 200,000 people.