High stakes in Sudan-South Sudan talks

TOP negotiators from foes Sudan and South Sudan prepared Tuesday for their first face-to-face meeting in peace talks since brutal border fighting last month took them to the brink of all-out war.Teams from both sides have flown to the Ethiopian capital to restart the African Union-led talks which were stalled by heavy clashes last month, the worst fighting since the South won independence last July.Tensions remain high, but South Sudan President Salva Kiir stressed ahead of the talks that “amicable dialogue on the outstanding issues with Khartoum is the only option for peace.”South Sudan’s chief mediator Pagan Amum said he expects progress at the talks as long as Khartoum cooperates.“We are expecting everything to be good, it depends on the other side,” Amum said as he walked into an internal meeting with the other members of the South’s delegation, including the South’s Foreign Minister Nhial Deng Nhial.Southern claims on Monday that troops had clashed on the border with the north after three days of air strikes and long range artillery bombardment overshadow the talks, despite Khartoum’s repeated denials of the attacks.Amum on Monday had said Sudan’s reported attacks were “not the signs of peace.”The UN Security Council earlier this month ordered both sides to cease fighting and return to talks or face possible sanctions.Sudan denied the reported attacks and it was not possible to confirm them independently. Khartoum has in turn accused the South of alleged cross-border incursions, which it said broke the UN order to halt hostilities.Khartoum, in an apparent peace gesture, has promised to end a year-long occupation of the contested Abyei region, a Lebanon-sized area whose ownership is a key issue for Juba and Khartoum. Troops were due to pull out on Tuesday.Sudanese troops stormed the region in May 2011, forcing some 110,000 people to flee southwards, where the majority remains in impoverished camps.“Sudan decided to redeploy the troops out of Abyei area to offer a good environment for the talks,” Sudanese army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said in a statement.However, he said the troops would pull out on condition Khartoum received a “guarantee” the area is part of its territory.Abyei was to have held a referendum in January 2011 on whether it belonged with the north or South, but that ballot was stalled over disagreement on who could vote, and Juba is highly unlikely to agree to relinquish its claim.Talks were expected to start late Tuesday, but it is not clear for how long this round is due to last.Khartoum has said “security issues should be addressed first,” according to the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC), which is close to the security apparatus, adding that it is unhappy with Southern maps marking contested regions as their territory.South Sudan broke away from Sudan in July after a 2005 peace deal ended one of Africa’s longest civil wars, which killed about two million people.But tensions soon flared again over a series of unresolved issues, including the border, the future of disputed territories and oil.The South separated with about 75 percent of the former united Sudan’s oil production, but Juba still depends on the north’s pipeline and Red Sea port to export its crude.A protracted dispute over fees for use of that infrastructure led South Sudan in January to shut its oil production after accusing the north of theft.Khartoum however has said that no other issues will be addressed in the talks until the question of border security is resolved, according to the SMC.Aid agencies have raised concerns over the plight of civilians in border areas, as well as the fate of thousands of people living on the wrong side of the border struggling to comply with orders to return to their homeland.At least 350,000 Southerners remain in Sudan -- many of whom have spent decades there after fleeing the 1983-2005 civil war -- and thousands of Sudanese live in the South.