Sudan, S. Sudan resume border talks with eye to oil
Tue Sep 4, 2012 6:58am GMT
* Mediators want to focus on demilitarised border zone
* U.N. has set Sept. 22 deadline to resolve issues
* Both sides face economic crisis, need oil deal
By Alexander Dziadosz and Mading Ngor
KHARTOUM/JUBA, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Former civil war foes Sudan and South
Sudan are to resume talks on Tuesday in Ethiopia that mediators hope will
produce a deal to secure the volatile joint border and clear the way for the
two countries to resume oil exports.
The countries have been locked in a series of disputes since South Sudan
split from its northern neighbour over a year ago under a 2005 peace deal
that ended decades of war.
Fighting along the 1,800-km (1,200-mile) border threatened to boil over into
a full-scale war in April when South Sudan seized an oil-producing region
long held by Sudan.
Tensions have eased since then but the disputes have taken a heavy economic
toll on both countries. Landlocked South Sudan shut down its vital oil
output in January after failing to agree with Khartoum how much it should
pay to export through Sudan.
Western diplomats and African Union mediators now hope to build on progress
after the two struck an interim deal on oil fees last month. Sudan says it
wants a border security deal before oil flows resume.
Officials from both sides have been much brighter in their predictions than
in previous rounds.
"Sudan's delegation is ready to reach an agreement by the end of this
round," El-Obeid Morawah, spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry, said. "I
think they (South Sudan) are also open-minded and open-hearted."
Michael Makuei Lueth, chairman of the border committee for South Sudan, said
he was optimistic about resolving issues such as cross-border trade, the
status of citizens in one another's countries, and the disputed Abyei border
region.
"If the government of Sudan is coming to negotiate in good faith, then we
are likely to agree on everything except the borders that will follow at a
later stage," he said.
"We're now going to put the oil agreement in its final form so that it's
initialed," he said, adding any final pact would require agreement from both
presidents in a summit.
DEMILITARISED ZONE
Both sides badly need oil revenues to jumpstart their economies. Oil used to
provide over half of state revenues in Sudan and accounted for about 98
percent of government income in South Sudan before the shutdown. Both
countries are facing soaring inflation and a shortage of the foreign
currency needed to pay for food imports.
The U.N. Security Council has set a Sept. 22 deadline for the two sides to
solve their issues or face sanctions.
To start, mediators want to focus on setting up a 10-km-wide demilitarised
buffer border zone to help ensure neither side is supporting armed groups
across the border, and to normalise travel and trade between the two
countries.
The African Union and U.N. Security Council have endorsed a map of the
demilitarised zone but Sudan has not agreed to it. It's objection has mostly
focused on the inclusion of a 14-mile strip of land used by the Arab
Misseriya tribe, diplomats say.
AU mediator Thabo Mbeki has sought to assure Sudan that the buffer zone
would not affect any agreement over disputed border areas, an issue that
might take a long time to settle.
Khartoum also wants assurances that Juba will stop supporting rebels
operating in the border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, an
accusation South Sudan denies but which analysts say is credible.
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Tue Sep 04 2012 - 18:44:31 EDT
