Sudan calls for speedy agreement over border centreline
July 8, 2013 (KHARTOUM/JUBA) – Sudan reaffirmed Monday the need to define quickly the centreline of the demilitarized zone in order to implement the security arrangements agreed between the two sides since September 2012.
Muaz Farouk, member of joint technical team said that the visiting African Union experts discussed with the competent committees the issue of the centreline with South Sudan. He further called for the speedy determination of this borderline in order to activate the buffer zone between the two countries.
Khartoum and Juba agreed in the security arrangements deal that a temporary demilitarized zone extending 10kms from each side should be established on the border disputed areas. But, it appeared that the two sides disagree too on these claimed areas.
Under the pressure of Northern Bahr el Ghazal government, Juba negotiating team accepted partly to include an area called 14 Mile in the buffer zone, while the Sudanese government says all the whole area is Sudanese territory and it refuses what Juba proposes.
The African technical delegation which discusses the positions of the two sides with the relevant authorities in Khartoum and Juba, is part of the efforts undertaken by the African Union mediation panel headed by the former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
South Sudan’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Nhial Deng Nhial, in press statements last Sunday, confirmed the arrival of the African Union experts to Juba in an effort to find a solution to the border differences.
Nhial was speaking shortly after his return from Addis-Ababa where he had been to brief the African Union and the Ethiopian prime minister about the challenges facing the two countries in resolving the border dispute.
However he did not tell the media when the AU technical team would arrive in Juba, but underlined it comes in the framework of African Union efforts to establish the buffer zone after the failure of initial attempts.
“The first attempt to establish a centreline for the buffer zone has failed,” the minister said, adding that the difference between the two sides include also Tashwin in Upper Nile state.
(ST)