Dec 2, 2006 (ASMARA) - Commanders from the Khartoum army and former rebels from eastern Sudan were meeting in Eritrea on Saturday to review progress in enforcing a recent peace deal that ended a 12-year armed conflict.

Rebel Eastern Front delegation to ceasefire modalities talks with the Sudanese army, Mussa Osman Issa the rebel signatory is the first on the left. 4 July 2006. (Shabait)

The commanders have been meeting since Friday in the Eritrean town of Tessenei, near the border with Sudan, to assess what advances have been made since the deal was signed in October.

They were holding "discussions on the programmes and time schedule, as well as the implementation of the final agreement regarding security and military structures", the Eritrean government said in a statement on its website.

Sudan’s vast eastern provinces have porous and volatile borders with Eritrea and Ethiopia and command access to the Red Sea, the key to the oil-exporting country’s economy.

Under the October peace deal, both sides are to release prisoners of war and the estimated 1,800 former rebel fighters are to decide whether to return to civilian life or join the Sudanese army or police.

The Eastern Front rebel movement was created last year by the Rashidiya Arabs and the region’s largest ethnic group, the Beja. It had similar aims to its better-known counterparts in Darfur — greater autonomy and control of natural resources.

The accord with the eastern rebels is part of efforts to pacify the whole of Sudan, African’s largest country, by building on peace pacts the Arab regime in Khartoum has already reached with other rebel groups.

These include a deal last year with insurgents in the mainly Christian south and an accord in May this year with one of the rebel factions in the western region of Darfur. But there are concerns that militias operating in the south are undermining the peace agreement there and Darfur continues to be plagued by a vicious civil war.

(AFP)