Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said today his government was willing to observe a ceasefire in Darfur from the start of peace talks in Libya next month.
"We have announced we are available [to put in place] a ceasefire with the start of the negotiations to create a positive climate," Mr al-Bashir said in Rome following talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
Khartoum has regularly agreed to ceasefires, but all have been quickly breached by the parties involved in the conflict.
Some rebel leaders have demanded that hostilities stop as a condition to participating in the talks in Tripoli, set to start on October 27th.
"We hope that the negotiations in Tripoli will be the last ones and that they will bring a final peace," Mr al-Bashir said. Mr Al-Bashir, who came to power in 1989 in a military and Islamic coup, was in Rome for talks with Italian officials and Pope Benedict XVI.
The visit takes place a few weeks before the expected deployment of an international peacekeeping force to try to improve the security situation in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region of Darfur.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003.
Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge Khartoum denies.