Sudan foreign minister says no need to deploy UN troops on north-south borders

October 30, 2010 (CAIRO) – Sudan’s foreign minister Ali Karti has reiterated the government’s rejection to the deployment of UN troops along north-south tentative borders despite growing tension over a critical vote on the secession of south Sudan from the north in January 2011.

In a joint press conference following talks he held in Cairo yesterday with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmad Abu al-Ghait, Sudan’s top diplomat said that the government sees no need to deploy such troops as they are likely to stoke tension.

According to Sudan’s official news agency SUNA, Karti told reporters that their government’s past experience demonstrated that the deployment of such troops is not in the interest of peace.

For his part, the Egyptian minister was quoted by SUNA as saying that Egypt insists that such deployment should only be made with the full consent of the Sudanese government.

Both civilian and military officials alligned to Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party, responded negatively to an announcement made on October 14 by the UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy who said that the world body intends to redeploy peacekeepers of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in south Sudan to Abyei and other hotspots along north-south borders.

The announcement was made less than a week after the President of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir to asked a UN Security Council (UNSC) delegation visiting Sudan to redeploy UN peacekeepers in order to create a buffer zone on the north-south border to avert a possible eruption of violence as tension heightens ahead of the referendum.

Sudan’s army spokesman Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad lashed out at the announcement, saying it demonstrates ignorance of the mandate of UNMIS peacekeepers.

The senior official of the ruling National Congress Party in north Sudan, Ibrahim Gandur, said that such measure contradicts the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

The CPA is the peace deal that ended decades of civil war between north and south Sudan and granted the south a chance for full independence from the north in the 2011 referendum.

Borders between north and south Sudan are yet to be demarcated despite the country being only 70 days from the vote that could see the country split in two.

North and south Sudan have recently traded accusations of military buildups in border areas.

In accordance with the UNMIS mandate, the 10,000 peacekeepers have to monitor and verify CPA implementation. They are also tasked with the monitoring the movement of armed groups based on the ceasefire agreement. UNMIS’s mission does not include border monitoring.

(ST)