Sudan, Eritrea set up reconciliation committees

Eritrea and Sudan on Sunday night signed in Doha an agreement to set up joint committees for reconciliation between the two countries. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasem al-Thani declared the signing of the agreement following a tripartite meeting held at the Foreign Ministry in Doha.

The meeting included the foreign ministers of Sudan, Mustafa Othman Ismael, and his Eritrean counterpart, Haile Weldensae.

During the meeting the two ministers discussed the mechanism of carrying out the reconciliation agreement between Eritrea and Sudan which was signed in Doha by the presidents of the two countries, Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Eritrea's Assyas Afworki, in May under the patronage of the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khaleifa al-Thani.

Sudan has been working toward reconciliation and concord with neighboring countries and Sudanese opposition groups, as a year ago the government issued a new constitution in which it lifted the 10-year siege imposed on factional multiplicity. President Omar El-Beshir recently issued a pardon for former Sudanese President Jaafar Nimieri, who spent 14 years in exile outside Sudan.

Since 1993, the government has been holding a series of discussions in Nairobi with the Democratic National Alliance, a grouping of northern and southern opposition parties.