Sudan ratifies S.Sudan border deal to restart oil exports
Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:55pm GMT
KHARTOUM Oct 17 (Reuters) - Sudan's parliament voted overwhelmingly on
Wednesday to ratify an agreement to end hostilities with South Sudan and
restart southern oil exports, a day after Juba's assembly approved the deal.
The settlement defused some of the disputes that brought the countries close
to all-out war earlier this year - and set up a demilitarised buffer zone
along their contested border.
But it stopped short of settling some of the most divisive issues left
unresolved when South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in July last
year, including the ownership of Abyei and other flashpoint territories.
Sudanese parliamentary speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taher said all but two
deputies had voted for the agreement, which was initially signed by the two
countries' leaders in Addis Ababa last month.
"We need to continue talking to the South and forget the tensions of the
past," he said before the vote.
South Sudan split away from Sudan under the terms of a peace deal that ended
decades of civil war between the two sides fueled by oil, ethnicity and
religion.
Distrust remains deep and the two countries' armies have clashed over the
border several times since the split.
South Sudan shut down its daily 350,000-barrel oil output - which passed
entirely through Sudanese pipelines - in January following a row over
transit fees. The move devastated both countries' oil-dependent economies.
The Addis Ababa agreement calls for the resumption of southern oil exports.
The African Union and other mediators hope the countries' mutual dependence
on crude exports will keep the peace and encourage them to push on for a
fuller agreement.
Southern officials say it will take three to 12 months to get oil exports
flowing again. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Ulf Laessing;
Editing by Andrew Heavens)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Peacekeeper killed, three wounded in Sudan's Darfur region
Wed Oct 17, 2012 6:29pm GMT
KHARTOUM Oct 17 (Reuters) - One international peacekeeper was killed and
three wounded in an ambush in Sudan's western Darfur region on Wednesday,
the international force UNAMID said, two weeks after four Nigerian
peacekeepers were killed,
UNAMID, the world's largest peacekeeping mission, was deployed by the United
Nations and the African Union in the arid western territory after fierce
fighting in 2003 which forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their
homes.
Unknown assailants ambushed an UNAMID convoy 10 km outside Hashaba North in
north Darfur, UNAMID said in a statement, without disclosing the
nationalities of the casualties.
Earlier this month, four Nigerian peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded
in an ambush near El Geneina in western Darfur. A total of 43 peacekeepers
have been killed since UNAMID was set up, according to the force.
Violence in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the
government in Khartoum, has ebbed from a 2003-04 peak but international
efforts to broker peace have failed to end the conflict.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Sudan's
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and other officials to face charges of
masterminding atrocities in the region where Sudanese troops and allied Arab
militias have sought to crush the rebellion.
Estimates of the death count vary widely.
Sudan's government signed a Qatar-sponsored peace deal with an umbrella
organisation of smaller rebel groups last year, but the major factions
refused to join. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Myra MacDonald)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Thu Oct 18 2012 - 07:16:41 EDT
