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Khartoum: Darfur's new chief mediator Djibril Bassole made his first visit to Sudan as he begins his uphill task of reigniting a stalled peace process.
"This will be a difficult mission but it's not mission impossible," he told reporters after long talks with Sudan's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Karti.
Bassole, the foreign minister of Burkina Faso, faces numerous obstacles to securing peace. Not least an announcement on July 14 that the International Criminal Court wants an arrest warrant for Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
"My priorities will be defined by the Sudanese but we must strengthen dialogue and ask for a cessation of hostilities to create the conditions to search for a comprehensive political solution," Bassole said.
The mediator met Al Bashir, a presidential advisor said, and confirmed he would be starting his post on August 1.
"The president gave him a briefing on how to resolve Darfur and said he was ready for any talks with Nafie [Ali Nafie] as the head of the government negotiating team," Bashir's press advisor Mahjoub Fadul told Reuters.
Bassole's task will be complicated by the fact he speaks neither Arabic nor English, the languages understood by those negotiating, whether from rebels or from the government.
Bassole will be based in Darfur's main town, Al Fasher, an improvement on his predecessors, UN envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmad Salim, who were often criticised for their "part-time diplomacy" jetting into the country for short visits every few months.
International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the government of neglect.
Yesterday the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) accused the government of bombing a village called Seref a day earlier in the rebel-held area of Jabel Moun in west Darfur near the Chad border.
"In total four people were killed including two children," said Sulaiman Sandal, JEM's deputy chief of staff.
A senior Sudanese army commander denied there had been any operations in the area.
In 18 months Salim and Eliasson failed to arrange any meaningful peace talks, but the Sudanese said they were upbeat about Bassole.
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