Sudan's Bashir to visit newly independent South Sudan

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will make his first visit to South Sudan since the country gained independence last July, a government official said on Tuesday, as both sides seek to resolve a bitter and costly dispute over oil.

The summit will be held in the South Sudanese capital Juba in the next two weeks, Sudan's foreign ministry said.

The two countries have been at loggerheads over the position of their border, including control of the disputed Abyei territory, and the issue of what transit fees South Sudan pays its northern neighbor to export oil from Port Sudan.

South Sudan shut down all its oil fields in January in protest at Khartoum's seizure of crude it said was to make up for unpaid fees. Juba depends on oil sales for 98 percent of state revenues, but says it will not restart production until a deal is reached. Khartoum is also heavily reliant on oil.

At the Juba meeting, Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir are expected to sign deals agreed in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. Those cover border disputes and the status of southerners living north of the border, Sudan Foreign Ministry spokesman El-Obeid Morawah said.

Sudan has ruled out dual nationality for southerners following the split and said that by next month an estimated 500,000 of them must choose to either return home or regularize their stay in Sudan as foreigners.

"Time is important in this matter," said Morawah. "After April 8, southerners will become foreigners."

The International Organization for Migration has said the April deadline represents a massive logistical challenge to both governments and the international community.

The two countries' interior ministers will head a committee to discuss solutions, including a possible extension of the deadline, Morawah said.

A deal on oil could move closer with an agreement on the nationality question and also the thorny issue of border security. Both sides regularly accuse each other of backing rebels groups on their side of the boundary.

In February, the two agreed to demarcate the bulk of the border, aiming to finish their work within three months, although this would exclude five disputed areas.

There was no immediate comment on the talks from South Sudan or the African Union, which is sponsoring negotiations between Khartoum and Juba.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Ben Harding)