KHARTOUM, (Reuters) – Sudan is close to signing a  “framework agreement” with Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality  Movement (JEM) in neighbouring Chad, Sudanese state television  reported yetserday, without giving details of the deal.

JEM was not available to comment on the announcement, but  its spokesman Ahmed Hussein Adam told Reuters earlier that a  number of officials from the insurgent group were flying to the  Chadian capital of N’Djamena for discussions last evening.

Any substantial deal between Khartoum and JEM would mark a  significant breakthrough towards settling the seven-year  conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.

JEM is widely thought to have the best armed insurgent force  in the remote western region and in May 2008 launched an  unprecedented attack on Khartoum. Past attempts to reach an  agreement between the two sides have failed.

Last year discussions in Doha that were supposed to pave the  way to full peace talks stalled after JEM accused the government  of failing to honour a set of agreed confidence building  measures, including the release of JEM prisoners.

Sudan TV said yesterday that Chadian President Idriss Deby  had brokered five days of talks between JEM leader Khalil  Ibrahim and Khartoum’s main negotiator on Darfur, Ghazi  Salaheddin.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told supporters  earlier yesterday that “they would soon hear some good news  about the ongoing negotiations for the realisation of peace in  Darfur region”, Sudan’s state Suna news agency reported.

“This news would represent the end of the fighting in Darfur  region and for good,” Suna quoted him as saying.

The Darfur conflict flared in 2003 when JEM and other mostly  non-Arab rebels took up arms against Sudan’s government,  accusing it of neglecting the mostly desert region.

Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militias to crush the revolt,  unleashing a wave of violence which Washington and some  activists call genocide, although Khartoum rejects this term.

Sudan and Chad agreed earlier this month to end their  long-running proxy war, fought through arming rebels on each  other’s territory. Deby shares ethnic links with JEM’s  leadership and many analysts have accused him of backing JEM.

An improvement in relations between the two countries has  long been seen as vital to any solution to the festering Darfur  conflict.