The government of Sudan plans to announce a cease-fire with Darfur rebels when peace talks begin in Libya on October 27, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Monday.
The ambassador, ‘Abd Al-Mahmoud ‘Abd Al-Halim Muhammad, told AP that declaring a cease-fire was a confidence-building measure, which could help the talks succeed.
The peace talks aim to bring an end to the four-year conflict in the western Sudanese province.
Previous cease-fires in Darfur have been violated.
The rebels are comprised of more than a dozen rivaling groups, some of which have announced they will boycott the talks due to disputes among the factions.
The Sudan Liberation Movement has threatened to shun the talks until a U.N. force is deployed in the area and pro-government groups are disarmed. They say they were not consulted about the venue of the talks and claim a more neutral country should have been chosen to host the meetings.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.2 million displaced since the conflict began.
Rebels took up arms against the central government in early 2003 to protest what they said were years of discrimination. The government is said to have unleashed armed groups called the Janjaweed to counter the rebels. The government denies these claims.
There are plans to deploy a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur under joint U.N.-AU oversight, to replace the current AU force which consists of about 7,000 troops and is largely under-equipped and understaffed.