SUDAN LEARNS ACEH PEACE PROCESS

Banda Aceh, Dec 13 (ANTARA) - A 29-member Sudanese delegation is visiting Aceh to learn the process in which the Indonesian government inked a peace deal with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to end their decades of bloody conflict.

"We want to learn the peace process in Aceh. There are many things we can adopt, such as the joint agreement between the Indonesian government and GAM, leading to the signing of an MoU in Helsinki," Abdul Aziz Adam Alhilo, deputy governor of the Sudanese state of Kordofan, said here on Sunday.

The delegation consists of representatives from the Sudanese states of Kordofan and Blue Nile. They met with the head of the Aceh regional secretariat's public relations bureau A. Hamid Zein, executive chairman of the Aceh Peace Reintegration Body (BRA) Nur Djuli and legislator Abdullah Saleh.

Alhilo said what happened in Sudan was a conflict between the central government and states to struggle for the local people's welfare.

The 20-year old conflict in Kordofan and Blue Nile ended in 2005 after the conflicting camps reached a joint agreement to put an end to the conflict, he said.

"The two sides agreed to end the conflict by signing a joint agreement," he said.

However, the agreement must also be accepted by the entire people in the two states, he said.

"If they cannot accept it we will hold another talks with the government probably in 2011," he said.

He hoped that his delegation's meetings with a number of elements in Aceh would give a new lesson to end the conflict in Sudan.***5***