Sudan and Rebels Under Pressure to Find Path to Peace ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - After several postponements, negotiations between Sudan's government and rebels resumed here this week in an effort to bring peace to the worn-torn country. "We are hoping to finalize the negotiations that both sides have been engaged in for a few years," Thabo Mbeki, a former South African president and the chief of the African Union's mediating team, said Wednesday at the opening of the talks. Negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement are to focus on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, southern states along the border with South Sudan. Fighting broke out in the two areas in June 2011, a month before South Sudan seceded from Sudan, when fighters once allied with rebels in the South refused to disarm. The current round of talks is the seventh and begins as all parties are being urged to reach a solution for Sudan's seemingly endless wars. "Both sides have been under very heavy pressure, especially from the African Union, to engage in this process," said Abdelwahab El-Affendi of the University of Westminster in Britain. The success depends on this pressure and engagement being maintained. Negotiators and mediators seemed cautiously optimistic. "We have come to complete what was agreed upon in the previous rounds," said Ibrahim Ghandour, the Sudanese government's top negotiator. Yasir Arman, the chief negotiator of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement emphasized the significance of the negotiations. "This round of talks will be registered in history as one of the important rounds, if not the most important one," Mr. Arman said in a statement at the opening session. He added, "It may be the last chance to salvage Sudan through a credible constitutional conference." Representatives of two Darfur rebel groups - the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army-Minawi faction - are also at the talks. Negotiations on Darfur, however, are scheduled for later this month. Conflict in Darfur started in 2003 as rebels there accused the central government in Khartoum of discrimination, negligence and marginalization. The talks come in the shadow of recent allegations of a Sudanese military buildup and increased air bombardment in South Kordofan and reports of the rapes of 200 women in the town of Tabit in Darfur. Sudanese Army officials deny that the attacks took place, and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur said Sunday in a statement that its investigators "neither found any evidence nor received any information" regarding the rape accusations. But the United Nations" special envoy on sexual violence during armed conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, said the presence of Sudanese forces might have hindered the inquiry. Gary Quinlan, Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, said that Ms. Bangura, in briefing the Security Council on Monday, "stressed that although the rape allegations remained unverified, in her view it was not possible to conclude that no sexual violence took place," according to Reuters. The United Nations estimates that the conflict in Darfur has killed as many as 300,000 people and displaced two million. It says about 385,000 people have been displaced there since the start of the year. The fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states has displaced tens of thousands of people to refugee camps in neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan. Parallel to talks with armed rebel groups, the Sudanese government called earlier this year for a national dialogue with opposition political parties, in the aftermath of a protest last year that led to the deaths of more than 200 demonstrators. The Sudanese opposition has demanded wider political freedoms, the postponement of the 2015 elections and the creation of a transitional government. In its national convention last month, however, members of the governing National Congress Party endorsed President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been in power since 1989, as a candidate for next year's elections. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of war crimes in Darfur. Mediators are working to synthesize talks between the government and rebels on one side with the national dialogue process on the other, in an effort to bring about one comprehensive solution to Sudan's political problems. Some analysts close to the negotiations believe that the conditions exist to resolve the conflicts in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, and that there is a great degree of agreement on both sides, but an absence of political will. Dr. Affendi of the University of Westminster was more specific. "What is needed is concessions from Khartoum on national dialogue issues such as elections, freedoms, etc., and pressure on rebels to agree to comprehensive cease-fire," he said.