MACHAKOS, Kenya, October 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sudanese government officials and representatives of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Tuesday, October 15, agreed to observe a truce for the duration of groundbreaking talks aimed at ending nearly two decades of civil war.

The truce is due to come into effect on Thursday, October 17, and remain in force until the negotiations are concluded, which will be not later than the end of the year unless both sides agree to an extension, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted SPLM/A spokesman Samson Kwaje as saying.

“Both parties have signed the truce,” Kenya’s special envoy to the peace talks, General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, told AFP here on Tuesday.

Asked whether the ceasefire will be monitored, Sumbeiywo said: “There is no monitoring, but we will assist them to establish channels of communication.”

Khartoum and the SPLM, who have been fighting since 1983, were Monday, October 14, due to resume peace talks interrupted in September, but a row over the terms of the truce delayed the start of the negotiations in the Kenyan town of Machakos.

Sumbeiywo said the talks will resume Wednesday October 16, with the issue of power-sharing in Africa’s largest country being the first item on the agenda.

More than two million people have been killed since the conflict in Sudan erupted in 1983, and twice that number have been displaced.

At the heart of the conflict is the question of how to share power and resources between the Arab, Islamic government in the north and the secular south.

The sharing of revenue from Sudan’s oil reserves, which began to be exported in 1999, will be among the main points of negotiation, as will the security arrangements in the south during a six-year period of autonomy agreed to during an earlier round of talks in July.

The temporary truce was aimed at “creating and maintaining a conducive atmosphere throughout the negotiations until all the outstanding issues in the conflict are resolved,” Kwaje said.

Under the truce, both parties are called upon to freeze propaganda against each other, allow unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas, and conduct negotiations in good faith.

“This is the first time that there has been a linkage between military hostilities and peace talks,” Kwaje added.

The ceasefire, due to be signed on Monday, was put back to Tuesday, as the two parties haggled over points in the document.

The government side had been demanding that the eastern front of the war between Khartoum and the SPLM/A be excluded from the truce, because the opposition umbrella group, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), was spearheading an offensive against government forces there.

But Kwaje told AFP that the government delegation had shown a willingness to sign the truce after the rebel group, whose soldiers make up about 60 percent of the NDA, said that it would order NDA forces to stop fighting once a truce had been signed.

“Our forces are the majority in the NDA and we are in a position to guarantee that the NDA will stop fighting when it receives orders from the SPLA,” said Kwaje.

Khartoum has, for its part, promised to contain pro-government militias that attack SPLA positions in the south, Kwaje added.

A spokesman for the Sudanese government delegation welcomed the truce, saying it was the key to the peace process.

“With the ceasefire, an atmosphere has been created and we will move forward, provided that we adhere to the first Machakos protocol and the agreed agenda,” Sudan’s Minister of State for Labor and Administrative Reforms Tagelsir Mahgoub told AFP.