NAIROBI, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Visiting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is scheduled to meet Sudan and Somali peace mediators in theKenyan capital Nairobi on Thursday, the two mediators confirmed here Wednesday.
Kenyan special envoy for peace in Somalia, Ambassador Bethwel Kiplagat, told Xinhua that he will brief the UN chief on the status of the Somali peace talks which has entered into its third and final phase.
"I welcome tomorrow's (Thursday) meeting with Annan at which I hope to brief him on the status of the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference," Kiplagat said by telephone from Nairobi, the venue of the Somali peace talks.
Somali warlords, clan leaders, interim government officials andrepresentatives from civil society have since October 2002 been attending talks in Kenya aimed at restoring the first semblance ofa national administration in Somalia.
Lazarus Sumbeiywo, Kenyan special envoy for peace in Sudan, said by telephone from Naivasha, 90 km northwest Nairobi, where the current round of negotiations are taking place, both the Khartoum government and southern rebels are continuing with deliberations on details of a comprehensive ceasefire and how to implement various deals signed since July 2002.
Sumbeiywo, the leading player in the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediation team, said he would request the UN secretary general for support in deployment of UN military monitors inside Sudan to enforce whatever will be achieved in the talks.
The Sudanese government and the main southern rebel began peacetalks in March 1994 in Kenya. The parties in May this year signed key peace protocols on power sharing in the three conflict areas, paving way for an end to the war that has cut Africa's biggest country into two for over two decades.
Annan arrived here from the third African Union summit being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he focused more on western Sudan's Darfur region, saying a "catastrophe" was looming there. Enditem