South Sudan official arrives in Sudan to settle border row

PanARMENIAN.Net - A top South Sudanese official arrived in Sudan on Saturday, December 1 to discuss how to set up a demilitarized border zone, a condition for resuming oil exports, in the first direct talks between the neighbors since new tensions broke out last month.

The African countries agreed at talks in Ethiopia in September to end hostilities and restart oil exports - including creating the buffer zone - after coming close to war in April, the worst violence since South Sudan seceded last year.

South Sudan had shut down its oil production of 350,000 barrels a day in January after tensions over pipeline fees escalated.

But the neighbors have been unable to agree how to withdraw their armies from the disputed border, a step both had said was necessary to resume oil exports from landlocked South Sudan through Sudanese pipelines.

"I came here from Juba to activate the joint cooperation agreements signed between the two countries in Addis Ababa for the benefit of the two people," Pagan Amum, South Sudan's chief negotiator, told reporters at Khartoum airport. He said he had brought a letter from South Sudan's President Salva Kiir for his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Sudan's top negotiator Idris Abdel-Qadir said it was in the interest of both countries to break the deadlock.