KHARTOUM (AFP) — The Sudanese government called on Sunday on southern ex-rebels to rejoin the unity cabinet they quit 10 days ago or risk sinking a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa's longest running civil war.
But the Sudan People's Liberation Movement refused to lift its boycott until all its demands are met by Khartoum.
Vice President Ali Osman Taha's appeal to the SPLM came as north-south relations plunged into their worst crisis since a Comprehensive Peace Accord was signed in 2005.
"We call on the SPLM to go back on its decision if it wants to save the CPA," said Taha, who along with late rebel leader John Garang is considered the main architect of the increasingly fragile peace deal.
The SPLM, led by Garang's successor Salva Kiir, froze its participation in the government on October 11, complaining that the ruling National Congress Party of President Omar al-Beshir was stalling on implementing the CPA.
Key gripes include the failure of northern troops to redeploy from the south, equitable sharing of oil wealth from the disputed oil-rich region of Abiye and finalising an eventual north-south border.
While the peace deal called on Khartoum to pull out its soldiers from the south by July 9, the ex-rebels say the north continues to reinforce troop numbers near oil fields in the south.
The NCP in return accused the SPLM of stalling on the peace deal, and party vice-president Taha told reporters that "nothing can justify" the SPLM decision to leave government.
The SPLM flatly rejected Taha's appeal, vowing never to return to the government until their demands are met.
"Mr Taha's statement is baseless and unfortunate," SPLM secretary general Pagan Amun told AFP in Nairobi. "Sudan is in a national crisis triggered by the non-implementation of the CPA by the National Congress Party."
"We call on them to implement the agreement. That is the only condition of the SPLM to return to the government, push for peace and achieve democratic transformation of the country," Amun said.
Amun said Kiir would hold a press conference on Monday in Juba on the issue.
Talks between Kiir, also first vice president in the unity government, and Beshir failed to reach an agreement last week despite the president having authorised a much-delayed reshuffle and are due to resume on Wednesday.
The most significant portfolio change was the removal of foreign minister Lam Akol, viewed by the south as too close to the NCP and as a defender of government actions in the troubled western region of Darfur.
In a gesture aimed at wooing the southern partners back, Beshir appointed Deng Alor, a senior SPLM leader, as foreign minister.
Taha said that "more of the agreement has been applied than hasn't."
He insisted that tangible progress had been made in drawing up the north-south border and in sharing the country's relatively recent oil wealth, while the Abiye problem was heading for a solution.
The civil war erupted in 1983 when southerners took up arms to demand an equal share of national wealth from Khartoum. At least 1.5 million people were killed and four million displaced.
"I can't see any reason for the SPLM's decision," Taha said, criticising the former rebels for bemoaning the progress of Sudanese democracy because many of their activists are currently being held in Khartoum jails.
According to Taha, the SPLM could not criticise the sluggish pace of reform while slowing it down by quitting government. He pointed to the fact that electoral reform legislation is in the process of being adopted.
In a possible broadening of the stand-off, the SPLM said on Saturday that it had secured the support of the opposition National Democratic Alliance.
The grouping, which includes the Democratic Unionist, Communist and Baath parties, expressed its support for the SPLM "in its search for peace, democracy and free elections."
The NDA was formed in the early 90s in opposition to Beshir's Islamist regime and is considered a rival to former prime minister Sadeq al-Mahdi's Ummah party.
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