Historical welcome for Garang in Khartoum

More than one million Sudanese took the streets to receive Leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM / SPLA), John Garang, amid joy of achieving peace as he arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, yesterday, for the first time since 22 years.

In his speech which he had delivered at the headquarters of the ruling National Congress party upon his meeting with Garang, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised to achieve peace in Darfur in the west of Sudan as well as the east of Sudan considering that the return back of Garang ends all the country's problems.

Bashir added that the Sudanese will give an example of "good governance, a role which is different from earlier phases." He continued "we will all cooperate and united to compensate for the people of Sudan for what they had lost in the past 50 years," in remarks to the years of wars which erupted for the first time in 1955 prior to Sudan's independence.

For his part, John Garang described what was achieved in Sudan as "peace for all the people of Sudan," stressing that he is amid his brothers and sisters chanting slogans "no south without north, and no north without the south." He added "I came here to work together. We put our hands together to build Sudan and bring it to a new status to be a typical example in the African region and in the world."