Negotiators from Khartoum and Juba meet in Addis Ababa amid new tensions on borders
March 31, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The spokesman of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad on Saturday claimed that forces from South Sudan’s army (SPLA) carried out an incursion inside South Kordofan State.
But Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the South Sudanese army, denied the allegations.
“That is not true. We don’t have any SPLA from South Sudan that have crossed to South Kordofan. If anyone is doubting us, let them send monitors,” Aguer told Agence France Presse (AFP).
“They are trying to push us back so that they can invade Unity State and take the oil fields, and the SPLA will not stand for that” he added.
On Friday a source told Sudan Tribune that rebels from the Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) managed to briefly enter Teludi before being pushed back by SAF. The latter claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the assailants including two T-55 tanks and seized a large number of small weapons and machine guns.
But the rebels today said that the battles continued through the night and on into Saturday.
“Our forces managed to go inside the town but still the fighting is going on,” said SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi.
Sa’ad said that the SPLM-N wants a foothold in South Kordofan through taking over Teludi and making it a strategic base given its location. However, he stressed that the army will not allow that to happen. He also alleged that yesterday’s attack on Teludi was carried out jointly by SPLM-N and SPLA.
In response to a question on whether the current situation can be construed to be the start of war between the two countries, SAF spokesman said that the declaration of war is a political decision.
“I cannot say this is war particularly as we have a security and political delegation, now sitting at the negotiating table in Addis Ababa and therefore it is not wise to say that we are at war when it is prudent to say that we must overcome differences” he said.
This week SAF & SPLA fought around the oil-rich region of Heglig with South Sudan president Salva Kiir announcing that they had taken control of it in the course of repulsing Khartoum’s aerial and ground attack inside South Sudan’s Unity State.
But Kiir’s assertions regarding Heglig were contradicted by SPLA field commanders and later South Sudan’s army announced that it has disengaged and returned to its old positions inside the country’s borders.
In South Kordofan and Blue Nile States, along the contested border with South Sudan, SAF has for several months been at war with ethnic minority insurgents who fought alongside the former rebels now ruling in Juba.
Khartoum persistently accuses Juba of providing aid to the rebels but South Sudan routinely denies the charge.
In Addis Ababa, the Sudanese government delegation started informal consultations with the Chairman of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki along with the committee of experts.
The delegation briefed Mbeki on what it claimed was military assaults by South Sudan on oil-rich Heglig and Teludi.
The spokesman for Sudan’s foreign ministry Al-Obeid Marwih said that the delegation in Ethiopia is comprised of the ministers of interior and defense., intelligence director, deputy chief of staff, state minister at foreign ministry in addition to chief negotiator Idriss Abdel-Gader and Sudan’s ambassador designate to Juba Mutrif Sideeg.
He pointed out that the official talks with South Sudan will start on Saturday.
Delegates told AFP that they had been asked by the mediation to refrain from talking to journalists.
“We are ready and prepared to discuss the [issues] if our counterparts can just come to Addis,” South Sudan’s Foreign Minister Nhial Deng Nhial told AFP in the Ethiopian capital.
Along with Nhial, Juba’s ministers of defense, justice and parliamentary affairs were at the meeting venue, as was their chief negotiator Pagan Amum.
This week’s battles led to the suspension of a long-awaited summit between Kiir and his Sudanese counterpart Omer Hassan al-Bashir set for 3 April. But the South Sudanese government say that they have not received formal notification from Khartoum in this regard.
(ST)