Sudan agrees to halt military operations in Darfur

The Sudanese government announced Sunday its agreement to unconditioned halt of its military operations in the Darfur region.

"The Sudanese forces will respond only if they are attacked," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail told reporters after a meeting of the joint mechanism between the Sudanese government and the United Nations.

He denied the alleged intention to pull out the government's forces from the areas they recaptured from the Darfur rebels recently.

"We will immediately inform our forces to stop fighting and we will not fire unless we are attacked," said Ismail.

Concerning the ongoing talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Movement in Naivasha, Kenya, the foreign minister stressed that "the talks are going on as planned for".

He said most of the issues had been resolved, expressing his expectations for starting the last steps to achieve the final peace agreement's draft.

Concerning the negotiations between the government and the Darfur rebels in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Ismail said "there is a meeting for the joint committee for monitoring ceasefire to review the report released by the head of the joint committee in order to come out with a unified decision on it".

He added that if the committee succeeded on the ceasefire issue, the round of talks in Abuja would shift to the other pending issues, expressing his hope that it would be ratified before the limited time.