South Sudan reiterates readiness to start negotiations with Khartoum

May 10, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – South Sudan said it is prepared to immediately resume stalled negotiations with Sudan on the basis of the African Union (AU) roadmap that was endorsed this month by a Chapter VII United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution.

The resolution orders the two countries to resume talks that were suspended following military clashes between the armies of Khartoum and Juba which started in late March. South Sudan also managed to briefly occupy the oil-rich region of Heglig, which Sudan says is in South Kordofan State.

Sudanese officials gave contradictory stances on whether they accept the UNSC resolution which they opposed before it was adopted. Yesterday, the Sudan’s ruling party said it refuses to accept parts of the decision dealing with negotiations with rebels who have been fighting government troops in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states since last year.

On Thursday Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir stressed that they will only implement the portions of AU and UN decisions they agree with.

But South Sudan Minister of Cabinet Affairs Deng Alor gave his country’s unconditional support to the resolutions which gives Khartoum and Juba three months to conclude talks on key issues such a soil, borders, Abyei and citizenship.

“We are ready to go for negotiations any time … I expect negotiations to resume any time from now,” Alor told a news conference in the South Sudanese capital Juba according to Reuters.

Alor stressed that despite the escalating military tensions they have no interest in war.

“We are ready to go the extra mile to negotiations,” he said.

“Nobody is interested in war, we don’t want it, the international community doesn’t want it and the region doesn’t want it…. Let us resolve these issues peacefully and let us avoid any armed conflict, because you know, we have had enough of it,” Alor added.

The South Sudanese minister said that they are prepared to resume exporting the country’s oil through the north’ s territories if there is an agreement.

“If there is an agreement on the use of the pipeline again through the territory of Sudan we will do that,” Alor said.

“If the Government of Sudan is not ready for us to use their territory to export our oil, then it goes without saying that we will not use it and we are planning for an alternative pipeline,” he said.

This contradicts statements made by South Sudan chief negotiator Pagan Amum last month to the Financial Times in which he said that ” “I don’t think our oil will flow through Sudan any more again.”

Landlocked South Sudan had been using a Sudan pipeline and port to export its crude, but imposed the shutdown in a dispute over fees for the trans-shipments.

South Sudan inherited three-quarters of the country’s oil when it gained independence in July 2011. But the pipelines needed for export are in Sudan and the two have been unable to agree on how much the South should pay to transport its oil.

(ST)