"Vice President Ali Osman Taha signed tonight a peace accord with the leader of the opposition Democratic Unionist Party Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani," Osman al-Dardiri, Khartoum's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told AFP without providing details of the accord.

He said the signing took place in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and that Taha had ready left Saudi Arabia after arriving there earlier in the day.

In Khartoum, Sudan's state-run television also announced news of the peace deal, which ends 14 years of hostility between the government and the Democratic Unionist party.

Mirghani, who lives in exile in Cairo and Asmara, had recently warned that his party's exclusion from the government's peace talks with the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) augured badly for peace prospects.

SPLA leader John Garang told AFP on Wednesday that he wants to share power not only with President Omar al-Beshir but with other political leaders once the ongoing peace process brings an end to the 20-year civil war.

He had met in Cairo in May with Mirghani and Sadeq al-Mahdi, head of the Umma Party, the other main northern opposition party.

The three issued a joint statement promising to "make all efforts to support the current negotiations ... and realize a national consensus through the participation of all political forces."

The SPLA has sought to defend the rights of animists and Christians in the south against successive Arab and Muslim governments in the north.

Umma and other northern opposition groups joined the SPLA in 1995 in Eritrea in taking up arms against Khartoum, but their unity lasted only a few months.

WAR.WIRE