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 Re: نائب الرئيس السوداني: لا استفتاء في أبيي من دون اتفاق سياسي بين الشمال والجنوب!السواى ما ح (Re: jini)
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US presses Sudan ahead of talks on fate of Abyei
Sat Oct 2, 2010 5:12am GMT
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Teams from north and south Sudan will meet in Ethiopia on Sunday in a bid to reach a deal on the oil-rich region of Abyei, a key hurdle ahead of January referendums on the future of Africa's largest country, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi ahead of Sunday's talks, which seek to determine how to run a January plebiscite in which residents of Abyei can decide whether to join the north or the south, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Clinton urged Khartoum "to come to Addis Ababa on Sunday prepared to negotiate and to make sure that the negotiating team will have specific authority to reach agreement on Abyei," Crowley said.
The Obama administration's special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, and Ambassador Princeton Lyman, a veteran U.S. diplomat recently drafted to help mediate the talks, will also participate in the Addis Ababa discussions, Crowley said.
Meles, who will host the talks, pledged to Clinton that he would do "everything he could to encourage the parties to reach an agreement on Abyei," Crowley said.
"We are very conscious of the fact that we have just about 100 days remaining (before the referendum), and Abyei is one of the central issues that has to be resolved before we can hope for a successful referendum early in 2011," he said.
The Abyei vote on January 9 will take place alongside a larger plebiscite on independence for southern Sudan, expected to result in a decision to break off and form Africa's newest country.
U.S. President Barack Obama has offered the northern government in Khartoum improved U.S. ties if it works to bring peace to Sudan, which many observers fear could slip back into civil war.
U.S. officials said negotiators for both sides met in New York last month and reached a preliminary agreement on the framework for the vote in Abyei, a key oil-producing region that both sides claim.
The two sides have been deadlocked over membership in the region's referendum commission, while borders have also not been demarcated following threats by the nomadic Arab Missiriya in the north.
The south's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement says the Khartoum government is settling thousands of Missiriya in northern Abyei to influence the vote. The Khartoum government denies this.
The United States has in recent months stepped up its diplomacy on Sudan, hoping to prevent a resumption of the long civil war that ended in 2005 with a fragile peace deal.
Observers say time is running short to fully organize the January votes, which many see as key to the future stability of central Africa and a resolution to the long-running violence in the western region of Darfur.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE69100L20101002
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حليمة محمد عبد الرحمن
فيس بوك
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بنتيريست