S. Sudan border demarcation team in Khartoum for talks

March 17, 2015 (JUBA) – A border demarcation team from South Sudan is in neighbouring Sudan for technical discussions on the two nations can resolve their outstanding issues.

South Sudan’s information minister, Michael Makuei on Monday told SSTV that they were on a three-day visit, during the both sides would agree on an agenda for next joint technical committee meeting.

Officials at South Sudan’s embassy in Khartoum told Sudan Tribune the two sides started discussing the border issue.

In Juba, South Sudanese minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation said his country commended the visit and hope it would help the two sides to address some of the outstanding issues.

“We need to promote mutually beneficial cooperation and common development for our two countries. In order to bring about full recovery and healthy growth, it is essential that we stand together in times of difficulty, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote common development”, Barnaba Marial Benjamin said on Tuesday.

Marial said his ministry seeks to enhance mutual communication and coordination with his Sudanese counterpart to firmly safeguard and develop an open dialogue to achieve integration through openness and development through integration.

“We need to maintain a free, open, and unprejudiced multilateral trade system, oppose protectionism in all its forms, and guide various bilateral trade arrangements in the direction of open and inclusive development as opposed to mutually exclusive development,” he said.

“We also promoting mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, and mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs”, added the minister.

Marial also emphasised that the 2012 Cooperation Agreement advocates and encourages leaders of the two nations to embrace and promote the principle of the two viable states living side by side.

South Sudan seceded from Sudan in July 2011, but the relationship between the two nations remains tense. According to Enough Project, Sudan and South Sudan’s border conflict, which flared dramatically in the spring of 2012, has the potential of escalating further if steps are not taken toward peace and security between the two countries.

Observers, however, argue that negotiations between the two countries remain the best means for settling the disputed border, related security arrangements, outstanding financial and oil-related issues, and the final status of the contested Abyei region

(ST)