Mbeki Meets With VP Taha to Defuse Tensions Between North & South
Date 2011/3/16 11:06:55 | Topic: Sudan
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sudan tribune
Khartoum — The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) announced today that Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, Vice President Ali Osman Taha and South Sudan president Salva Kiir will convene on Thursday to discuss the explosive situation in the North-South border region of Abyei.
Abyei has seen deadly clashes in the run up to and since the South Sudan referendum with scores killed. The NCP has maintained that the Arab Misseriya tribe, who enter the region with their livestock for part of the year, should be allowed to vote in the self-determination referendum for Abyei.
But the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) have rejected this, claiming that the southern-aligned Dinka Ngok are the only legitimate constituency in Abyei.
At least 70 people were killed and three villages razed in clashes earlier this month between fighters from the Misseriya and the Ngok Dinka.
The NCP warned last week that more violence may ensue unless the SPLA withdraws its police from Abyei.
The head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki held talks with VP Taha where he briefed him on the post-referendum talks, mediated by him, that took place in Addis Ababa between the NCP and the SPLM.
UN Photo/Tim McKulka
(File photo): Internally displaced persons fleeing fighting in Abyei.
The NCP political officer Ibrahim Ghandour said in press statements that Mbeki will head to Juba to continue discussions he had in Khartoum with the South Sudan government on ways to defuse tensions and provide a roadmap for future dialogue between the two sides.
Over the weekend, the SPLM Secretary general Pagan Amum said that the South decided to suspend talks with the NCP on post-referendum arrangements "until it stops its policy for obstructing stability in South Sudan, and until after the Security Council's investigation is concluded,".
Amum was referring to his allegations that the NCP is aiding forces loyal to renegade General George Athor which on Saturday attacked Malakal, capital of the south's oil-producing Upper Nile state before being repealed by SPLA.
The NCP denied the charge saying that the divisions in the South are behind the unrest.
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