<!-- IMAGE -->With eight months left in the road map provided by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, the United States continues to seek ways to help bring stability and security in Sudan.
The 2005 CPA ended decades of conflict between the North and South in Sudan, granting the South a large degree of autonomy, setting up a unity government, sharing the nation's oil wealth, and setting a timetable for key elections next year and a 2011 referendum on complete independence for the South.
Peace remains elusive, however, with tensions high along the North-South dividing line and a festering humanitarian crisis among the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the Darfur region.
President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a recent hearing that the administration is committed to implementing the CPA and is working on a comprehensive strategy to address both the North-South divide and the Darfur crisis.
Plans will be announced shortly he said, and as policymakers continue their deliberations, the U.S. will continue working with the international community, humanitarian aid groups, and the governments in Khartoum and Juba to address the ongoing problems and lay the groundwork for going forward with four major goals: ending the crisis and suffering in Darfur; building a sustained peace between North and South; developing a functioning and stable Sudanese government; and working with that government to counter terrorism and promote regional security.
Engagement with all of Sudan, the region, the international community, and civil society is essential if that nation is to achieve peace and stability, if it is to be governed justly, if it is to be at peace with its neighbors and economically viable.
The 2005 CPA ended decades of conflict between the North and South in Sudan, granting the South a large degree of autonomy, setting up a unity government, sharing the nation's oil wealth, and setting a timetable for key elections next year and a 2011 referendum on complete independence for the South.
Peace remains elusive, however, with tensions high along the North-South dividing line and a festering humanitarian crisis among the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the Darfur region.
President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a recent hearing that the administration is committed to implementing the CPA and is working on a comprehensive strategy to address both the North-South divide and the Darfur crisis.
Plans will be announced shortly he said, and as policymakers continue their deliberations, the U.S. will continue working with the international community, humanitarian aid groups, and the governments in Khartoum and Juba to address the ongoing problems and lay the groundwork for going forward with four major goals: ending the crisis and suffering in Darfur; building a sustained peace between North and South; developing a functioning and stable Sudanese government; and working with that government to counter terrorism and promote regional security.
Engagement with all of Sudan, the region, the international community, and civil society is essential if that nation is to achieve peace and stability, if it is to be governed justly, if it is to be at peace with its neighbors and economically viable.
