Sudan's government and former rebels will allow other opposition parties a role in writing a new constitution, but the start of work has been delayed to allow for more talks, the ruling party said yesterday. The ruling National Congress Party and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement signed a peace deal in January to end more than two decades of civil war in Sudan's south. Under the deal a new government of national unity will be formed and wealth and power will be shared. The first task is to form a new interim constitution. The two parties had planned to hold at least a two-thirds majority in the constitutional commission, which is the percentage needed to make any decisions. But the NCP said they had compromised to give other parties a real say. "It will mean the two (parties) together will be less than two-thirds in the commission," Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, secretary-general of the NCP told Reuters.The peace deal allows for power sharing in government, giving the NCP 52 percent and the SPLM 28 percent of all posts. Northern opposition parties get 14 percent and non-SPLM southern forces six percent. But a special compromise was being negotiated for the constitution, an important national issue. Omar said the SPLM and NCP had given up 10 seats between them to have only 38 of the 60 seats in the constitutional commission, a little over 63 percent. It will allow opposition parties some say, if small, in the shaping of the constitution. The compromise is likely to appease those opposition parties still undecided about joining the constitutional commission after weeks of talks. A joint NCP-SPLM delegation is leaving this evening for Egypt for two days of talks with Sudan's main umbrella opposition group, which is hesitant about joining.