Ugandan rebels maintained Thursday they would not return to Juba, southern Sudan, in a bid to restart faltering negotiations aimed at ending the 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, Kenya, the Lords Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) leader of the delegation to the peace talks, Martin Ojul, said their earlier stand on refusing to return to Juba as host of the peace talks has not changed.

Ojul denied reports that they had agreed to meet southern Sudan mediators to restart the stalled talks, saying they feared for their safety after Sudanese President Hassan Omar al-Bashir vowed to "get rid of the LRA from Sudan."

"LRA/M would like to categorically state that its original position on Juba, southern Sudan as venue/host and on Government of South Sudan (GOSS) as mediation has not changed, and that Dr. Riek Machar is no longer mediator as attested to in the formal letter from LRA/M informing him to that effect," Ojul said.

"LRA/M has no plans, nor does it intend to return to Juba. LRA/ M has not held any meeting whatsoever with south Sudan government to express any change in the original position of LRA/M on the stalled Uganda Peace Process," he said.

"Moreover, it is also not true that LRA/M intends to meet Dr Riek Machar anywhere on the stalled Uganda peace process."

Early this week, reports quoted chief mediator, south Sudan's Vice President Machar, as saying that he had been given assurances the rebel group's representatives would come back to the negotiating table.

"There were differences between those (LRA rebels) who supported coming back to the talks and those who did not. Now they have reunited," Machar said.

But Ojul maintained that the talks would only resume at a different venue and under a new mediator.

"If what has been reported in the mass media reflects the views of Dr Riek Machar, LRA/M appeals to Dr Machar and his government to stop insisting on what will never be, and also stop interfering with efforts by other bodies that are working towards securing a new venue, host and mediation," said Ojul.

"LRA/M is united in its demand and search for a new venue, host and mediator so that a true, genuine, just and lasting peace may be restored to Uganda," he said.

The LRA/M statement comes barely a week after religious leaders urged the Kenyan government to reconsider its decision not to host the peace talks.

A truce signed in August and renewed in December last year is due to expire at the end of this month.

Many in northern Uganda are apprehensive about what could happen if it is not extended, though Uganda has ruled out launching attacks on the rebels.

Under the landmark ceasefire, LRA fighters were given until the end of January to assemble in two places in south Sudan. But both sides accused each other of violations.

LRA leader Joseph Kony and three of his top commanders are wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court and have indicated that no deal can be signed while warrants for their arrest remain in place.

Two decades of civil war between the LRA and Uganda's military have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 1.7 million more in northern Uganda.

Source: Xinhua