As international mediators once again converge in Kenya for what is supposed to be the final stage of Sudan’s laborious peace process, there are increasing concerns that there is no "Plan B" should the two parties fail to reach a compromise at this month’s talks.

"One of two things is going to happen," US special envoy John Danforth commented before his departure on his fifth and final mission to bring an end to the world’s most deadly and intractable conflict. "Either there is going to be a peace agreement, in which case the further activities of the U.S. government are going to be in conventional channels - or there’s not going to be a peace agreement, in which case I don’t know

what else I can do."

Although the talks’ original June deadline passed almost without comment, mediators now believe all outstanding issues should be resolved in this month’s last round of talks, preparing for a peace deal in mid-August. Success in the next few weeks depends on both sides compromising on issues on which they have remained divided during the last twelve months of negotiations.

Danforth is curiously downbeat: "My own view of it, and I’ve told this to the president, is I just don’t see what further value I bring to this, other than this one last trip. It’s basically to deliver a message - that is, that the president is very concerned, that he’s very interested and that the time is now."

George Bush had been hoping that a successful U.S. intervention can be used as a model to resolve other regional conflicts, but Sudan is clearly taking a back seat on the agenda as the President’s recent African trip touched on many other issues but not the continent’s longest war.

However, there is also growing concern in Washington that Khartoum may not have completely severed all links with terrorism. Uganda’s President Museveni apparently made a compelling case for his claims that the Sudanese Armed Forces had restarted supplying the Lord’s Resistance Army during last month’s US visit. The recent arrest of seventeen Saudis at a secret terrorist training base outisde el Lagowa might at fist sight look like cooperation in the war on terror but it does pose the question of why they had been able to operate with impuniity in Government-controleld areas of the Nuba Mountains until May 2003.

It is also clear that many people fear that a peace process driven by outsiders will suffer from a lack of ownership by the protagonists themselves – and that it ignores many of the causes and complexities of the conflict.

A peace deal would be only a first step towards keeping the country united, as wary southerners would still have to be won over to avoid secession, President Omar el Bashir recently told supporters. "It is easy to sign a peace deal, but it is difficult to convince the southerner who wants war and is being exposed to bad propaganda to vote for unity, "Bashir said, adding that elections could help convince all Sudanese they had a voice in Africa’s largest country. "General elections will be held in the first year after the signing of a peace treaty to allow people to have a say in running the affairs of the country,he said during celebrations to mark the fourteenth anniversary of his June 29 coup.

Bashir’s problem is that, while he needs to play up his willingness to compromise for the sake of international opinion (and the need to be seen onside in the war on terror), he has always founded his government’s dubious claim to legitimacy on the need to step in to defend Islam.

This aspect was recently evident when the head of the half million-strong pro-government Popular Defence Forces (PDF), Ahamed Abbas, vowed to protect the faith and the nation against enemy endeavours to halt the march of Islam already started in Sudan. During an exceptional show of force in Khartoum by 5000 members of the PDF, Abbas told his fighters to safeguard the 1989 "national salvation revolution". He said the march was aimed at reinforcing the PDF mandate for Jihad, or holy war, and reviving its spirit among the nation.

Bashir himself insists that he will never compromise on the Islamic identity of Khartoum, despite SPLA and northern opposition demands that the federal capital should be exempt from Sharia. "We would like to underline here that the state-religion question has been settled and our focus now is on the division of power and wealth and the security measures in the interim period. This is what we are negotiating now," the president recently stated. "Any attempt to renegotiate that (Khartoum’s religion) question will mean undermining the peace talks and aborting the peace process."

In addition to the red line issues of religion and security (the SPLA refuses amalgamation into a national army) there is growing concern that the two-party framework at Machakos is not addressing all the country’s current conflicts, especially the long-running rebellions in the "marginalised areas" (Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile), and the recent outbreak of armed conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. Their grievances have largely been viewed as of secondary importance to those of the South, but  there is a growing realisation that they must be taken into account if a sustainable nationwide peace is to conflict, as non-Southern opposition elements scramble to make their issues heard through the barrel of the gun. Much of the tension is being fed by the same factors that led to the long-running war in southern Sudan: a central government that has exploited local resources, imposed its religious and cultural beliefs on diverse populations and consistently pitted local tribes and ethnic groups against each other for short term tactical gain. It is clear that Sudan’s crisis is systemic and the solution cannot be only a southern one".

Despite the cessation of hostilities, renewed for another three months at the end of June, "There is a real potential for those who feel ignored by IGAD peace process to undermine any deal that is between only the Khartoum government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army warns a recent ICG report, "Sudan’s Other Wars".

"The continuing difficulties in the Three Areas and recent violence in Darfur make clear that all Sudan has a shared problem: the marginalisation of peripheral regions and groups by successive governments in Khartoum. The clear danger is that as long as these groups continue to feel marginalised and their views are not represented in the IGAD process, the pull toward violence will remain compelling."