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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Oct 02 2010 - 18:05:18 EDT
Fri Oct 1, 2010 7:52pm GMT
WASHINGTON Oct 1 (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.
(Reporting by Andrew Quinn; editing by Todd Eastham)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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