By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's government signed an agreement with Darfur's rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Saturday that would help resolve the conflict in the western region, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said.
He did not go into details about the deal but JEM delegates in the Chadian capital N'Djamena told Reuters earlier they were poised to sign a "framework agreement," which was not a full peace deal but set out the terms for future negotiations.
Bashir said in a speech on state television: "Today we signed an agreement between the government and JEM in N'Djamena and in N'Djamena we heal the war in Darfur."
Bashir added he would cancel death sentences handed out to JEM prisoners and free 30 percent of them immediately. More than 100 men were sentenced to death after being found guilty of taking part in a JEM attack on Khartoum in 2008.
Khartoum has agreed to a series of ceasefires during the seven-year conflict, but some have fallen apart days after their signing, and distrust between the warring parties remains deep.
Talks between JEM and Khartoum, hosted in Qatar, have been stalled for months.
SUDAN-CHAD THAW
But there has been a flurry of activity between the two sides in recent days, some analysts say, against a background of thawing relations between Sudan and neighbouring Chad.
Sudan and Chad, both preparing for elections, agreed earlier this month to end their long-running proxy war, fought by arming rebels on each other's territory. Chadian President Idriss Deby shares ethnic links with JEM's leadership and many have accused him of backing JEM.
JEM and Darfur's rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) took up arms against the government in 2003, accusing Khartoum of leaving their western region marginalised and underdeveloped.
SLA founder Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, with strong support among the region's displaced population, is refusing to talk to Khartoum, demanding an end to violence before negotiations.
The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur's crisis in the past seven years, but Sudan rejects that figure. The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Bashir last year for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.
(Reporting by Andrew Heavens and Khaled Abdel Aziz, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
