October 30, 1999
Web posted at: 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT)

By Cairo Bureau Chief Ben Wedeman

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- Hope for peace in Sudan, where Africa's longest-running civil war has left more than two million dead and four million displaced, has been sparked by talks in Egypt.

The Cairo meetings mark an intensification of efforts to solve one of Africa's most brutal wars. Egypt and Libya are attempting to unite the opposition groups, which are predominantly Christian and in the south, with the Muslim opposition in the north at the negotiating table with the seat of Sudanese government in Khartoum.

Since the early 1980s, the Christians and animists in the south have been fighting to gain autonomy from the Muslim-dominated government.

Both the Sudanese government and its opponents, however, say they are satisfied that a week of talks in Cairo has resulted in real progress towards ending the 16-year-long civil war.

Cairo's peacemaking partnership with Libya has run counter to the position of the United States, which promotes its own peace plan and is hostile to Libya's involvement.

During a recent tour of Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright seemed resistant to the Egyptian-Libyan effort.

But after the talks in Cairo, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan hinted at a willingness to take the Egyptian-Libyan initiative more seriously.

"The United States government recognizes Egypt's long history and special interest in the Sudan. As a result, we the U.S. have proposed that Egypt and the U.S. continue our dialogue about how to achieve a lasting peace settlement," the envoy said in a statement.

Peace in Sudan is important to Egypt because the Nile River flows through Sudan. The unspoken fear in Egypt is that a hostile government could restrict the river's water.

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