South Sudan official visits Sudan to try to resolve border dispute
By Khalid Abdelaziz
KHARTOUM | Sat Dec 1, 2012 5:37am EST
(Reuters) - A top South Sudanese official arrived in Sudan on Saturday to
discuss how to set up a demilitarized border zone, a condition for resuming
oil exports, in the first direct talks between the neighbors since new
tensions broke out last month.
The African countries agreed at talks in Ethiopia in September to end
hostilities and restart oil exports - including creating the buffer zone -
after coming close to war in April, the worst violence since South Sudan
seceded last year.
South Sudan had shut down its oil production of 350,000 barrels a day in
January after tensions over pipeline fees escalated.
But the neighbors have been unable to agree how to withdraw their armies
from the disputed border, a step both had said was necessary to resume oil
exports from landlocked South Sudan through Sudanese pipelines.
"I came here from Juba to activate the joint cooperation agreements signed
between the two countries in Addis Ababa for the benefit of the two people,"
Pagan Amum, South Sudan's chief negotiator, told reporters at Khartoum
airport.
He said he had brought a letter from South Sudan's President Salva Kiir for
his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Sudan's top negotiator Idris Abdel-Qadir said it was in the interest of both
countries to break the deadlock.
"We welcome the visit of our brother Pagan in Khartoum and, as our brother
Pagan said, the aim of his visit is to implement the cooperation
agreements," he said.
Security officials from both countries will meet from Monday in Khartoum to
discuss setting up the demilitarized zone.
On Monday, Kiir accused Sudan of putting new obstacles in the way by
demanding that South Sudan needed first to disarm rebels fighting the
Khartoum government inside Sudanese territory.
Sudan has not publicly responded to the comments but has accused South Sudan
of supporting rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North
(SPLM-North), which operate in two states bordering South Sudan.
South Sudan denies backing the SPLM-North, which seeks together with rebels
from the western region of Darfur to topple Bashir.
The new tensions in the past two weeks have delayed resuming oil production
in South Sudan that had been originally scheduled for November 15, a serious
blow to both crumbling economies.
South Sudan became independent in July 2011 after a referendum agreed under
a 2005 peace agreement which ended decades of civil war between the Muslim
north and the South, where most follow Christian and African faiths.
South Sudan inherited three-quarters of Sudan's oil production when it
seceded but needs to pay Khartoum for using northern export pipelines to the
Red Sea coast.
(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Pravin Char)
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Received on Sun Dec 02 2012 - 17:14:35 EST
