Sudan: Khartoum, Juba Agree to Demarcate Border to Ease Tension

South Sudan and Sudan have agreed to start demarcating their common border to thaw the frosty relationship between the two countries.

The demarcation of the loosely defined and volatile border is expected to begin on Sunday following a deal reached in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The two countries have been engaged in a row over their boundary and transportation of oil from South Sudan to Port Sudan for refinery, threatening to return the former bitter foes to war.

But in a move that could ease the rising tensions between the two neighbours that split last July 9, their negotiating teams agreed February 15 on direct commencement for demarcation of the border between South Sudan and Sudan provided that it is completed within three months.

But a statement from Sudan's embassy in Nairobi quoted a member of the country's delegation at the negotiations, Mr Yahia Hussein Babiker, as saying despite the agreement, two other committees were still in talks.

One of the committees is concerned with citizenship while the other deals with the border issue. The agreed demarcation would, however, not include five areas that are still disputed by the two sides.

Mr Babiker said there were still five unsettled border points, but they could not affect the demarcation process of the others at the moment.

Sudan and South Sudan share a common 1,200-kilometre border. Armed clashes have been witnessed at Blue Nile and the disputed Abyei areas on this borderline.

The Juba and Khartoum delegations have agreed on more than 90 per cent of the areas to be demarcated, adding that there was no hindrance on the ground, Mr Babiker explained.

In addition to Abyei, the two parties diverge over the ownership of Kefia Kingi on the border between South Darfur and Western Bahr el Ghazal; Kakah between South Kordofan and Upper Nile; and the two areas of Jodah and Almqnas on the border of White Nile and Upper Nile.

Mr Babiker said the latest round of negotiations did not achieve much concerning the oil issue, but talks will resume this week.

The official said South Sudan has shown willingness to continue with the talks and reach agreement on issues causing conflict between the two states such as resuming export of its oil through Sudan and its facilities.

Mr Babiker commended the role of the African mediation and its efforts to present suggestions to narrow the differences between the two parties.

South Sudan seceded from its northern neighbour last July under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of conflict, but lingering issues such as where to draw the border and how to untangle the oil industry have continued to stoke tensions between the two.

Tribal disputes, overlapping territorial claims, rebel fighting and the presence of economically vital oil fields have beguiled attempts to define the exact boundary.

Tensions along the boundary have made it harder for the two sides to reach a deal around how much landlocked South Sudan should pay to send its oil - vital to both economies - through northern pipelines running to an export terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

The new nation shut down its roughly 350 000 barrels per day of production last month in protest after Khartoum began confiscating some oil to make up for what it called unpaid fees. Officials on both sides have suggested war could break out over the row.

Civil conflict

Two million people died in the civil conflict waged over ideology, ethnicity, religion and oil. On February 10, Sudan and South Sudan signed a security agreement to avoid armed conflicts between the two sides.

The agreement, reached under the African Union mediation, stipulated that each side respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the other, refrain from interfering in the other's internal affairs, reject any use of force and observe common interests and peaceful coexistence.