S.Sudan accuses Sudan of bombing, suspends direct talks
Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:39pm GMT
* Latest flare-up heightens tension after thaw
* S.Sudan said two people injured in bombardment
* Sudan denies bombing the South's territory
* Countries face the threat of sanctions by the UN (Updates with South Sudan
suspending direct talks, details)
By Aaron Maasho and Hereward Holland
ADDIS ABABA/JUBA, July 21 (Reuters) - South Sudan accused Sudan on Saturday
of bombing its territory along a disputed borderland and suspended direct
talks with its neighbour over oil and security issues, but Khartoum denied
the charge.
The two countries split peacefully last year under a 2005 agreement that
ended decades of civil war. But many issues remain unsolved, and the two old
foes came close to all-out war in April after border clashes escalated.
South Sudanese military spokesman Philip Aguer said Sudanese war planes had
bombed the village area of Rumaker in the Northern Bahr al Ghazal border
state on Friday morning.
"Two people were slightly injured," he said. "The bombing happened at 3:25
a.m. when people were still sleeping."
South Sudan said it would suspend direct talks scheduled for Sunday in Addis
Ababa. The negotiations, which started last week, raised hopes of a
negotiated solution to end hostilities.
"We have suspended the direct, bilateral talks because of the bombings by
Khartoum," said Atif Kiir, spokesman of South Sudan's negotiations team.
He said that any further talks in the Ethiopian capital would take place
only under the auspices of an African Union (AU) panel and would not be
direct. "We won't attend direct talks while they bomb our territory," he
said.
Sudan denied bombing its southern neighbour, saying it had targeted rebels
inside its own territory. It said the rebels of the Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM) had crossed the border from the South and entered Darfur, in
Western Sudan.
The group is part of a rebel alliance that wants to topple Sudanese
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and which Khartoum says is being supported
by South Sudan. Juba denies this.
"The Sudanese army forces dealt with them inside the Sudanese territory,"
the state news agency SUNA quoted an official at Sudan's Addis Ababa
delegation as saying. "The South Sudanese territory did not get violated."
SUNA said Sudan was ready to continue direct talks.
Bashir met his southern counterpart, Salva Kiir, last week on the sidelines
of an AU summit, their first meeting since border fighting worsened in
April. [ID: nL6E8IE37Y]
The long-time rivals have broken off several rounds of negotiations over
differences on where to draw a demilitarized buffer zone along the disputed
border as a first step to end hostilities.
The neighbours face the threat of sanctions from the U.N. Security Council
unless they peacefully resolve border, oil and other security disputes by a
deadline of Aug. 2.
The Security Council has already expressed concern over delays in the
negotiating process..
The two countries accuse each other of supporting rebels on their respective
territories and argue over how much landlocked South Sudan should pay to
export oil using pipelines and other infrastructure in the North.
The South shut off its oil production in January, instantly erasing 98
percent of state revenues, as part of the dispute.
Southern claims of attacks are hard to verify due to a lack of access to the
remote border zone although Reuters reporters have witnessed several
bombings on southern territory. (Reporting by Aaron Masho, Hereward Holland
and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Sat Jul 21 2012 - 17:51:30 EDT
