Two related wire-service stories, both reprinted on Sudan.Net:
From AFP...
Sudan's first post-war parliament held its first session Wednesday, as the country took another step towards implementing a peace agreement ending more than two decades of north-south conflict.
Much of the session was devoted to procedural issues, such as election of a speaker and his first deputy for the 450-strong National Assembly, appointed in accordance with the January 9 peace deal.
Members began the meeting by electing Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, the former speaker of the Sudanese parliament from the ruling National Congress Party, as speaker. SPLM delegate, Atim Garang Deng, was elected first deputy speaker.
Seats in the National Assembly, the largest in the history of the country, were distributed according to power-sharing quotas in the accord that gave the NCP 52 percent of the seats.
The NCP's peace partner and former southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), got 28 percent.
Northern opposition parties received 14 percent and their counterparts in the south got six percent.
A few opposition groups, including the Umma Party of former premier Sadiq al-Mahdi and the Popular Congress Party of Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, have said they will not participate in the new parliament.
Sudanese leaders said they were still holding discussions with the National Democratic Alliance, a grouping of former-exiled opposition forces, on its participation in state institutions, including parliament.
Officials said one of the first duties of the new assembly would be to amend laws to conform to the spirit of the peace deal.
President Omar al-Beshir was scheduled to address the body later in the day.
From the AP...
Sudan's president vowed Wednesday to work to end the suffering of the people of Darfur and pushed for a peace deal modeled on January's accord that ended the 21-year southern civil war.
"The problem of Darfur and its repercussions remain a thorn in the country's back and a stain on the clean cloth of peace," the Sudanese president told 450 lawmakers at a session of the new parliament formed as a result of the southern peace deal.
Sudan, a nation ravaged by conflict for decades, has been basking in a period of rare optimism following the January signing of a peace deal that ended the southern war.
But the separate Darfur conflict in western Sudan has been raging since February 2003 after rebels from black African tribes took up of arms after complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan's Arab-dominated government.
The United States accuses al-Bashir's government of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militia in a campaign of murder, rape and arson against black African tribes from Darfur.
More than 1.9 million people were forced to flee their homes since the conflict began, while war-induced hunger and disease have killed more than 180,000 people, according to United Nations estimates.
Al-Bashir has denied claims that his government has backed the militia, known as the Janjaweed, in the violence and said Wednesday that Sudan's justice and security authorities are trying to secure areas where violence persists in Darfur and "apprehend the criminals and punish them."
He also said the southern comprehensive peace agreement, which outlined systems of power and wealth sharing and offered a referendum to southerners in six years to decide if they wanted autonomy, could serve as a model for Darfur's warring parties to follow.
"This would mean a just distribution of wealth and sharing of power (in Darfur) so that all claims of marginalization would end," said al-Bashir.
In a wide-ranging address to Sudan's parliament, al-Bashir also touched on the war in Iraq, with the Sudanese leader calling for the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces from that war-ravaged country.
"We call for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq so that the Iraqi people would spell out their views on their own future," said al-Bashir. "We also stand with Iraq and its territorial integrity and security."
Lawmakers also chose ruling National Congress party member Ahmed Ibrahim Tahir, speaker for the outgoing parliament, to hold the post again.
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