Sudan, South Sudan agree to set timeline for issues

The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan agreed Saturday to abide by timelines to be drawn up to implement a raft of security, oil and border deals stalled for over three months, mediators said.

With the two neighbors increasingly cash-strapped after a spat led South Sudan to shut down its oil output a year ago, the announcement offered fresh hope of a breakthrough in long-running talks to end the crisis.

African Union (AU) mediator Thabo Mbeki said at the end of a summit meeting in the Ethiopian capital that Sudan President Omar al-Bashir and his Southern counterpart Salva Kiir had recommitted to the key deals and agreed to enact them “unconditionally”.

“Our panel is preparing a matrix for the implementation of all of the existing agreements with time-frames,” said Mr. Mbeki, a former South African president, adding that the AU would complete the timelines by January 13.

The deals, which were signed in September but were never implemented, include the restarting of South Sudan oil exports through north Sudan pipelines, as well as the reopening of border points for general trade.

They also included the withdrawal of troops back from contested border regions to create a demilitarized buffer zone hoped to ease tensions between the two armies, who came close to all out war in March and April 2012.

The summit of the leaders, whose nations are both struggling with economic austerity cuts following South Sudan’s halting of oil exports through Sudan following a dispute over fees, was the latest of repeated rounds of AU-mediated talks.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who hosted and helped mediate the talks, said he was “very much satisfied” with the progress of the meeting.

“I am very happy that the bottlenecks are now released and the implementation can resume,” he told reporters.

Tensions have been high between former civil war foes al-Bashir and Kiir after the latest in a string of accusations that Sudan had bombed South Sudan. However, they were seen to smile and shake hands after their meeting on Saturday alongside Mbeki and Hailemariam. The presidents of the two Sudans did not speak to reporters.

Kiir and al-Bashir arrived in Ethiopia on Friday, one day after South Sudan accused Sudan of waging fresh attacks along their disputed border, but they first met separately only with mediators. South Sudan’s chief negotiator Pagan Amum called the alleged ground attacks and aerial bombardment on Wednesday in South Sudan’s border regions “unfortunate”, and said the mood at the talks had been hampered.

The resumption of oil production by South Sudan would be particularly valuable for both economies. However, no major breakthrough was struck on the key agenda item of the contested Abyei region, a long-time flashpoint on the volatile border and one of the most contentious sticking points between the two nations.

South Sudan separated from Sudan in July 2011 under a peace agreement that ended a 1983-2005 civil war, but key issues including the demarcation of border zones that cut through oil-rich regions remain unresolved.

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