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 أبيي كشمير السودان تحترق
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Fighting rages in Sudan as UN urges ceasefire, US seeks solutions
Deadly fighting raged Tuesday in Sudan's flashpoint oil area of Abyei between government forces and southern troops, threatening a fragile peace process and sparking a truce call from UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
In Washington, the US State Department said it was seeking ways to help end an outburst of heavy fighting that could sink a 2005 peace agreement.
Three years after the end of Sudan's north-south civil war, aid workers said government soldiers and southern ex-rebels, the adversaries who reached a fragile power-sharing peace pact in 2005, fought for hours in Abyei town.
The clashes severed a tentative ceasefire brokered by the United Nations.
The UN said unchecked deterioration in Abyei -- whose estimated half a billion dollar oil wealth is claimed by both Sudan's Arab north and Christian and animist south -- could undermine the entire peace process.
Ban Ki-moon's office in New York said the UN secretary general was deeply concerned.
Ban had urged "both parties to immediately observe the terms of the ceasefire agreed ... on 18 May," and said "there can be no military solution to the parties' differences over Abyei."
In Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to her African affairs expert Jendayi Frazer "to see how we might be helpful in resolving one of these final pieces of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement," a spokesman said.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) gave the south a six-year transition period of regional autonomy and participation in a national unity government until a 2011 referendum on independence.
In 2011, Abyei will also hold a separate referendum on whether to retain its special administrative status in the north or join the south.
Impasse over Abyei has been one issue delaying implementation of the peace deal. Without resolution, the fighting could sink the agreement, analysts say.
Local aid workers said fighting lasted for at least five hours between government troops and southern ex-rebels.
Violence began when southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) attacked Abyei which had been under government military control.
The Sudanese army said its soldiers were killed and wounded in the assault but that it repulsed the attack.
Fears are rising of a possible counter-attack on Agok, 25 kilometres (15 miles) to the south where UN agencies and aid workers are distributing food to some of the 30,000 to 50,000 people displaced by fighting in Abyei last week.
The special UN representative in Sudan, Ashraf Qazi,said "UNMIS (the UN mission in Sudan) has been in contact with both parties in an effort to arrest further deterioration of the situation, which if not checked could undermine the entire peace process."
Brigadier General Muntasir Sabier, the army commander in Abyei, told AFP by telephone SPLA forces attempted to seize control of the town.
Edward Lino, the chief southern politician based in Abyei, blamed the government military for sending additional troops into the town overnight.
"The objective of the SPLA now was first of all to defend ourselves and the area, and to defend the people," he told AFP by telephone from the south.
"This is the biggest violation that happened (since the 2005 peace agreement) but we are for peace and we cannot allow it to fall," he said.
The United Nations last week evacuated its entire civilian staff from the town following fighting between government forces and the SPLA.
The entire civilian population in the town and outlying areas -- a mixture of Arab and Ngok Dinka tribesmen -- also fled.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=232381&s=&i=&t=...,_US_seeks_solutions
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