Sudan rebels insist new parliament be formed after peace deal

Sudanese rebel groups engaged in peace talks with Khartoum insisted Wednesday that the country's new parliament be formed only after an agreement is reached to end long-running conflicts in three border regions. A power-sharing deal signed on August 17 between protest leaders and the generals who ruled Sudan after the April overthrow of longtime President Omar al-Bashir stipulates that a 300-member parliament be formed within three months.

Since the signing of the so-called "Constitutional Declaration", the transitional government, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, has engaged in talks with three rebel groups to reach a peace deal to end the wars in Darfur, the Blue Nile, and South Kordofan. Rebel groups said that during talks in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, the two sides had agreed to delay the formation of a new parliament until a peace deal has been reached.

The groups said they would not give up their demand despite the protest movement's insistence on the original November 17 deadline stipulated by the so-called "Constitutional Declaration". "The Sudanese Revolutionary Front rejects any unilateral attempt to violate the Juba declaration that aims to build confidence measures," the rebel alliance said in a statement.

The SRF called on Khartoum to "stick to what has been agreed on" in Juba. It urged Khartoum not to set off any "upheaval that might disturb the atmosphere and create a state of mistrust that will delay the reaching of peace, which our country is in desperate need of".

Hamdok's government has made reaching a peace deal to end the conflict in the country's three war zones a priority. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the rebellions by ethnic minority groups in the three conflict zones that met with an iron fist from Bashir's ousted regime. 

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