KHARTOUM (AFP) ? The northern branch of the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement on Tuesday accused President Omar al-Bashir of sabotaging efforts to reach a ceasefire in the embattled state of South Kordofan.
The SPLM north said in a statement that it was informed by the African Union mediators after talks in Addis Ababa on Monday that Bashir had backtracked on key points in last Tuesday's provisional agreement between the northern ex-rebels and the government.
Malik Agar, the SPLM north's chairman, signed an accord with Bashir's top aide Nafie Ali Nafie in the Ethiopian capital that boosted hopes of a permanent political and security settlement for Blue Nile and South Kordofan, both northern states with a large number of SPLM supporters.
Among the complaints raised by the SPLM were Bashir's alleged claim that it is not a legally registered political party, contradicting a key provision of the framework accord, and the government's alleged intention to limit the agenda of the talks that it wants to take place without external mediation.
Fighting in ethnically-divided South Kordofan has raged for a month between the army and northern militia aligned to ex-rebel army of the south (SPLA).
The conflict has escalated tensions between north and south Sudan ahead of southern independence on Saturday.
Bashir has already dealt a blow to the prospects of an imminent ceasefire by announcing, shortly after returning from an official visit to China on Friday, that he had ordered the army to cleanse South Kordofan of rebels.
Observers say Bashir's tough stance is a calculated show of strength and a warning against any sort of follow-on secession efforts after the south splits.
But it has also drawn sharp criticism from world leaders, amid accusations from rights groups that the army's campaign is part of a government policy of ethnic cleansing, targeting the state's indigenous Nuba peoples, many of whom fought with the SPLA during their decades-long war with Khartoum.
The SPLM north on Tuesday again accused Bashir and the South Kordofan governor Ahmed Harun of ethnic cleansing, by denying those displaced by the fighting, which it said numbered more than 700,000, access to refugee camps, and by the "continued, indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian targets."
It urged a peaceful settlement to the conflict through negotiations.
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