Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, south Sudan's minister of regional cooperation Bernaba Marial Benjamin accused Khartoum of dragging its feet on the implementation of key areas.
Marial said four years after a peace accord ended two decades of north-south civil war in Sudan, the overall security situation remains fragile and unpredictable as a 2011 referendum looms on whether the south should secede or remain united with the rest of the country.
Benjamin, who is on a regional tour that has took him to Egypt, DRC, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya to brief regional countries on the CPA progress, said issues such as census results, border demarcation, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration should be addressed before the 2011 referendum.
"We have strategic issues that remained unaddressed such as border demarcation, how to deploy troops and census results. They are dragging their feet because they are the ones gaining from the peace agreement," Benjamin told journalists in Nairobi.
The Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2005 encouraged thousands displaced by 20 years of civil war in southern Sudan to return to Abyei. A local dispute in Abyei town -- close to some of Sudan's most productive and important oil wells -- spiraled out of control in mid-May 2008 and brought northern and southern forces into open battle again.
The area's citizens will choose in 2011 whether to join the north or south, but Abyei's boundaries are still disputed. A group of international experts delineated boundaries for the area in 2005 but their findings have not been ratified.
The Abyei area has remained in limbo since, neither electing its own local administration nor receiving the share of oil revenues due under the deal. Southern officials have estimated they should have received 1 billion U.S. dollars over the past four years from Abyei alone but have not received a cent.
"They fear that after the border demarcation, the south Sudan will take 100 percent of oil revenue because the oil wells will be within the south. There are concerns we have raised to the regional countries about what needs to be done," Benjamin said.
"We believe that time has come to give detailed briefing to regional countries like Kenya which spearheaded efforts that culminated into the signing of the CPA, how far we have gone with implementation, what problems we are facing and what need to be done before the July elections."
Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Council of Ministers would meet either in May or June to take audit of the CPA implementation.
"We have agreed that IGAD will call a Council meeting to review the CPA in two or three month's time," Wetangula told journalists after holding a meeting with Southern Sudan delegation.
He said the IGAD Council of Ministers will meet in Djibouti next month where they will set the date on the IGAD meeting on Sudan.
Wetangula said the challenges to the peace deal and the constant state of tension in north-south relations is a matter of concern to the region hence the IGAD meeting which will help thrash out the outstanding issues.
The two sides have signed a new roadmap to restore peace in Abyei which has been a source of tension between the two partners and allow people to return home. The plan calls for the redeployment of thousands of northern troops that southern forces say were moved into the area by the end of June.
A new joint force made up of both northern and southern forces has already been transported into the area by the UN peacekeeping force in Sudan.
Source:Xinhua
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