African Union leaders will meet on Thursday on the Darfur crisis hours before the expiration of a deadline set for the Sudanese parties to sign a peace agreement, officials said.
”The meeting is temporarily set to begin at 6pm local time in the Nigerian presidency,” AU spokesperson Noureddine Mezni told Agence France-Presse in Abuja, venue of a year-old series of peace talks between the Darfur region’s warring parties.
Nigerian foreign-ministry officials also confirmed the meeting.
AU chairperson President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo, AU Commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and officials of the AU mediation team, led by Salim Ahmed Sali, will attend, Mezni said.
He added that the heads of state will meet separately with the Sudanese parties and encourage them to clinch a peace deal to end a conflict that has cost between 180 000 and 300 000 lives and driven more than 2,4-million people from their homes.
Other African leaders in Abuja for an ongoing AU summit on HIV/Aids may also participate in the meeting on Darfur, he said.
Salim held a meeting late on Wednesday with Sassou-Nguesso and Konare.
The AAU had hoped to push the Sudanese government and two rebel armies into a peace deal by midnight on Sunday, but the deadline was extended and United States and British envoys are now trying to mediate a settlement.
It was not clear whether US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick or Britain’s International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, who are in Abuja for the talks, will attend the AU ”mini-summit”, Mezni said. — Sapa-AFP