Sudan President Al-Bashir threatens war against south, says Abyei will “remain northern”

April 27, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir has reiterated claims that the contested oil-producing region of Abyei belongs to the north, and threatened to wage war against South Sudan if the latter opted for confrontation in the upcoming polls of the north-south border state of South Kordofan.

Ownership of Abyei region is claimed by both north and south Sudan, which voted earlier this year to secede in a referendum promised under the 2005’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended nearly half a century of intermittent north-south civil wars.

Abyei’s status was supposed to be decided in a referendum vote in January, but north and south Sudan disagreed on whether members of the north-backed tribe of al-Messriya, whose nomads cross over to Abyei few months a year to graze their cattle, should be allowed to vote alongside the south-linked tribe of Dinka Ngok.

In an inflammatory speech he delivered on Tues