Chad’s transitional council on Sunday announced it has decided to postpone a national dialogue that was scheduled to take place in the country’s capital, N’Djamena, on Tuesday, May 10, reported Aljazeera.
In a statement, the council said the talks will now take place at a later date, which will be decided after consultations with the relevant institutions and political organizations.
Last year, Chad’s longtime ruler Idriss Deby was killed on the battlefield while fighting with his soldiers against rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT). Since then, the country has been in turmoil.
The military swiftly took control, dissolved parliament, paused the constitution, and placed the late president’s son Mahamat Deby, also known as Kaka, at the helm of a Transitional Military Council (TMC).
Last year, Deby had called for an inclusive national dialogue in order to gather Chad’s various political stakeholders to discuss and set up a legal framework to hold elections within two years.
Rebel groups were also been invited to be a part of the talks. But the rebel groups agreed to participate only if certain conditions were met ahead of the talks. This led to the so-called pre-dialogue, which has been taking place in Qatari capital, Doha, where about 50 rebel groups presented their demands to a delegation of 24 government representatives.
The success of the pre-talks is very important for the national dialogue to be effective. But the negotiations in Doha are continuing at a very slow speed, due to which there have been growing calls for Chad’s national dialogue to be delayed.
Earlier on Sunday, the Qatari government had called for a postponement of the N’Djamena event, saying that the delay would give more time to the participating parties to reach a peace deal.
It added that the pre-dialogue was making significant progress.
