UPDATE - Sudan: Military, opposition stall in transitional talks

UPDATES WITH OPPOSITION’S STATEMENT

By Mohammed Amin

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AA) - The Sudanese military council and the Change and Freedom opposition alliance failed to make progress after three days of negotiations in talks on transitional arrangements.

Talks began on arrangements for a transitional period after President Omer Al-Bashir was ousted earlier this month.

Military spokesman Shams Aldin Kabashi told a news conference that both sides would continue talks in upcoming days despite disagreement on the percentage of seats in the transitional council.

“The opposition has presented a proposal of a composition that contains eight seats for the civilians and seven for the military, but we as a military council asked for seven seats for the military and three for civilians,” Kabashi said.

“We made it clear that the sovereignty of the country is supposed to be in the hands of the military and entire Cabinet can be a civilian authority, but the opposition has changed their mind and we are waiting for them to come up with a detailed proposal to the next meeting,” he added.

There has been some progress in the talks as Kabashi said both sides agreed main roads leading to a square in front of army headquarters will be opened. The roads have been used by demonstrators to organize sit-ins.

The opposition alliance, for its part, said the talks with the military council was “deadlocked” over the handing over of the power in Sudan to the civilians.

“So far, we failed to agree with the military council on the percentage of representation in the transitional council, Sidig Youssef, a leading member in the opposition alliance, told a news conference in the capital Khartoum.

“However, we submitted a proposal including the building-up of the structure and institutions of the transitional period,” he added.

Confirming the military council on the road agreement, Youssef said: “We accepted to open the part of the railway to ease the delivery of the food and cargo to some parts of our country, especially Darfur.

“But that does not mean that we will revoke the sit-in. We will continue protesting until achieving all our demands,” he emphasized.