ABUJA, Sept 12 (AFP) - Rebel negotiators at African Union-brokered peace talks in Nigeria on the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region said Sunday they were hopeful ongoing consultations will break a deadlock.
The peace talks between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups -- the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) -- were suspended until Tuesday because of differences on the key issue of security and disarmament.
"I think we are becoming hopeful. The informal discussions going on at the instance of the special envoy may eventually break the deadlock," SLM spokesman Abduljabbar Dofa told AFP in the Nigerian capital.
Dofa said the rebel goups "are very anxious to make peace so as to end the agony and killing of our people."
Up to 50,000 people have lost their lives and some 1.4 million displaced since February 2003 when the black African rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum to protest at the alleged political and economic marginalisation of their region.
Khartoum's response was to unleash a proxy Arab militia, the Janjaweed, on the region, arming them, backing them and giving them a free rein to crush the rebellion.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday told a Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States led to the conclusion that genocide had been committed in Darfur.
He said the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militia bore responsibility and that "genocide may still be occurring".
The Sudanese government has rejected the US charge, while the rebels welcomed it, saying they had been vindicated.