Bashir, Kiir pledge to accelerate implementation of cooperation agreements
November 20, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president, Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, and South Sudan’s president, Silva Kiir Mayardit, have pledged to speed up the implementation of cooperation agreements signed between the two countries.
In September of last year, both Sudan and South Sudan signed a series of cooperation agreements, which covered oil, citizenship rights, security issues, banking, border trade among others.
Last March, the two countries signed an implementation matrix for these cooperation agreements.
Sudan’s minister of foreign affairs, Ali Karti, disclosed in press statements at Khartoum airport upon his return from Kuwait that further steps, which he didn’t identify, would be taken to accelerate the implementation of the cooperation agreements.
He added that the presidential meeting discussed several issues on top of which is the demilitarized security zone between the two countries, pointing that progress has been made in this regard.
The joint security committee announced the postponement of a meeting scheduled for 5 November to discuss the baseline for the buffer zone called zero line, to allow more time for the AUHIP advisory committee to achieve its mission.
The Sudanese official pointed that Bashir held several meetings with the African leaders including the prime minister of Ethiopia and presidents of Mali, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi as well as presidents of Tunesia, Algeria and emirs of Qatar and Kuwait.
The foreign minister added that those meetings discussed bilateral relations and joint projects, pointing that Bashir’s meeting with the deputy prime minister of Iraq discussed the Sudanese projects which will be financed by Iraq.
Karti further disclosed that he held a meeting with his South Sudan’s counterpart, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, saying that they discussed the implementation of the cooperation agreements signed between the two countries.
He further described the 3rd Arab-African Summit as “excellent” and said that the Arab leaders decision to develop a mechanism for funding projects in Africa was the most important outcome of the summit.
Karti pointed that Arab leaders agreed to allocate $1 billion of soft loans to finance projects in Africa as well as $1 billion through the World Bank, saying that this amount is insufficient.
SUDAN – UGANDA
Karti denied reports about four-way summit between presidents of Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia on the sidelines of the Arab-African summit, saying that these reports were “made up” by unnamed parties.
However, diplomatic sources told Sudan Tribune that the four-way summit failed because Khartoum wanted to include in the draft of a final communiqué a clear commitment to not support rebel groups.
Bashir and Museveni discussed the issue of rebel groups on the sidelines of an African Union summit last October in Addis Ababa. At the time, Karti said that the Ugandan president admitted the need to resolve this problem between the two countries.
(ST)