By Sean Maguire and Skye Wheeler
JUBA, Sudan, March 7 (Reuters) - Fragmented Darfur rebel groups are ready to meet in south Sudan to overcome the divisions that have plagued anti-government forces and stymied peace efforts, Sudan's top southern politician said.
Salva Kiir said the scattered rebel movements had signalled they wanted Sudan's southern authorities to help them forge a united front that could negotiate effectively with the government on ending years of bloodshed in the Darfur region.
"The movements have agreed to a meeting," Kiir told Reuters on Wednesday at the headquarters of the southern government he leads. "We are telling them that a military solution is not viable and they will have to negotiate to achieve peace."
Kiir said he was hopeful of a peace deal for western Sudan this year.
Kiir is also vice-president in Sudan's national government, sharing power with the Islamist-dominated National Congress Party (NCP), as part of a 2005 deal that ended two decades of war between the largely Muslim north and Christian south.
The south's experience of reaching a peace deal with the north, however imperfect, gave it credibility with Darfur's rebels, said Kiir, a former general with the southern army.
Once the NCP agrees to send observers to the talks and backs security guarantees for rebel leaders then invitations will go out for a venue in the south yet to be fixed, said Kiir.
Previous efforts to reunite Darfuris, including tentative moves by Kiir and his Sudan People's Liberation Movement, have foundered amid distrust and suspicion among the rebels.
A long-delayed unity conference called by rebel commanders in Darfur has been postponed indefinitely as not all factions agreed to attend. A joint U.N.-AU effort has similarly made no progress.
Only one of three rebel groups signed a Darfur peace deal in Abuja last year. The others returned to the battlefield and split further along tribal and political lines, with no one leader now representing any significant body of rebel fighters.
STALEMATE
Kiir did not detail how he would overcome the differences between the rebels but said that once they did, Bashir's NCP was ready to negotiate a political solution to the Darfur crisis.
Experts say 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been pushed from their homes since a 2003 revolt by rebels charging the government with neglect. To help it fight the rebels, the government armed local Arab militias who have been blamed for much of the killing.
Fighting continues and the NCP refuses to heed those saying they cannot win a guerrilla war, said Kiir.
"They have been suffering very heavy casualties through trying for a military solution," he said.
Blame for the stalemate fell on both sides, said Kiir, though he refused to spell out his view on the issues being fought over.
"Genuine claims from the rebel movements must be addressed by the government," he said. "And the rebels must abandon intransigent positions that they have adopted as bargaining points."
Ethnic and tribal rivalry, warlordism, power struggles and tussles over grazing rights between pastoralists and nomads have all been blamed for fuelling the Darfur conflict.
Bashir has rejected international demands he allow a large United Nations force into the western province to help an African Union mission struggling to protect civilians there.
Analysts say he is fearful a big U.N. presence will undermine his grip on power and arrest those wanted by the International Criminal Court, which he says has no authority in Sudan.
Kiir said his SPLM party had not yet agreed a common position on the ICC with Bashir's NCP. Analysts say SPLM backing for the ICC would be explosive, potentially threatening the collapse of its power-sharing deal in Khartoum.
