LAGOS, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the warring groups in Sudan's Darfur region, refused on Friday to sign a peace deal with the Khartoum government, demanding fundamental changes made to the draft.
JEM chief negotiator Mohammed Tugod said in the Nigerian capital Abuja that the peace plan drawn up by the African Union (AU) failed to answer his group's demands.
Tugod said the JEM wanted the peace deal to give it a Darfur regional government, a post of Sudanese vice president, greater representation in national institutions, compensation for victims of the conflict and the allocation of 6.5 percent of Sudan's national income to a Darfur development fund.
"We want those amendments, otherwise we won't be able to sign," Tugod said.
His demands have been known for months, but the AU earlier said it would not reopen substantial negotiations on the already revised text.
The AU had urged the Sudanese government and rebel leaders to sign an agreement by midnight on Thursday or face isolation and the threat of UN sanctions. But the deadline came and went with no peace deal despite two years of peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The JEM is the smallest of the three rebel factions involved in the talks, and it was not immediately clear whether the other two factions, both of them arms of the Sudanese Liberation Army, would sign the document.
Rebel groups took up arms in Sudan's Darfur region in February 2003, accusing the government of negligence. Many people have been killed in the conflict and more displaced. Enditem
