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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Thu Jul 29 2010 - 11:27:34 EDT
Bashir's party raises doubts on south Sudan referendum
29 July 2010 Last updated at 13:38 GMT
President Omar al-Bashir's party has said the referendum on whether south
Sudan should secede cannot take place until the internal border is decided.
A vote on a possible new country without a clear border would be a recipe
for a new war, the NCP says.
But the former rebels in charge of the south have angrily dismissed linking
the two issues.
The SPLM fought the north for two decades before a 2005 peace deal which
paved the way for January's referendum.
The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says some in the south see the National
Congress Party's statement as an attempt to delay the vote, or possibly to
press the SPLM to back down over areas in dispute.
He says there are several areas of dispute about the boundary, including
near lucrative oil fields.
The two parties are officially in coalition but tension is growing ahead of
the referendum.
Both north and south have accused the other of delaying the demarcation
process.
map
A senior NCP official, Ibrahim Ghandour, told the BBC he did not want Sudan
to follow the example of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1991, but the two countries are still arguing
and have fought over the precise border.
Southern minister Barnaba Benjamin told the BBC that linking the border
issue with the referendum was "illogical and unacceptable".
He agreed that the border must be demarcated but said if this was not done
by January, the referendum should still be held as planned.
A majority of southerners, who are mostly Christians or followers of
traditional religions, is expected to vote for independence from the mainly
Muslim and Arabic-speaking north.
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