Peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels who control parts of Blue Nile and South Kordofan states will resume early next month.

The Sudanese government received an invitation from the African Union High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) for resumption of the Two Areas talks on 2 November, according to press statements made by Amin Hassan Omer, a leading ruling party figure and the government's negotiator at previous talks with the SPLM-N.

He said that the government has an integrated vision for talks on the humanitarian and security tracks for ending the crisis in the Two Areas.

Blue Nile and South Kordofan are partly controlled by the Sudan People's Liberation Army – North (SPLM-N). The group's leader Malik Agar has also been serving as head of the coalition group Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), which also includes several Darfur rebel groups, but he was allegedly ousted from that chairmanship at an SRF meeting last Saturday.

SRF's deputy chairman as well as JEM officials claimed that Malik Agar was removed from his position after a meeting of the rebel coalition's leadership in Paris and replaced by JEM Chairman Jibril Ibrahim. This was subsequently denied by Malik Agar himself in a lengthy statement.

The differences between the SPLM-N chairman and other elements of the SRF coalition raise the possibility that the rebel groups will go into talks with the Sudanese government next month without a unified vision or structure.

In the meantime, the government has announced repeatedly its keenness for Sudanese rebel groups to join the National Dialogue that was recently launched in the capital Khartoum. The involvement of a broader array of opposition groups would lend more credibility to the government's position that the Dialogue process is inclusive, but so far the SRF have refused to participate.

File photo: Amin Hassan Omar