Mubarak in Libya to discuss Darfur

AFP
AFP
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TRIPOLI: President Hosni Mubarak arrived on Tuesday in Tripoli for talks on the situation in Sudan s war-torn western region of Darfur, an AFP correspondent reported.

Mubarak, who held talks with Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir in Cairo on Monday, is expected to meet Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, officials said.

According to Egypt s top government-owned newspaper Al-Ahram, Mubarak traveled to Libya with a high-ranking delegation including Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Also in Cairo for talks on Monday, the United Nations envoy to Sudan Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim called for fresh efforts to revive a moribund one-year-old Darfur peace deal.

In a bid to end the civil conflict that has cost at least 200,000 lives since February 2003, Khartoum reached a peace agreement with rebels in May 2006 in Abuja.

Only one of three negotiating rebel factions signed the agreement, however, increasing division within rebel ranks that led to further violence.

Khartoum has come under pressure from the West to accept the deployment of a robust UN peacekeeping force in Darfur to prop up the embattled AU contingent already on the ground since 2004.

Libya has spearheaded mediation attempts between Khartoum and the various rebel factions and has played a key role in efforts to prevent the Darfur conflict from spilling over into neighboring countries.

Late last month, Libya hosted a conference, attended by all five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, which called for the implementation of the UN peacekeeping plan.

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