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South Sudan says president ready to meet Bashir With delegations from South Sudan and Sudan scheduled to resume talks in Ethiopia mid-January, President Kiir extends invitation to President Bashir to hold summit on outstanding disputes
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir is willing to meet Sudanese counterpart Omar Al-Bashir to resolve conflicts and resume vital oil flows, a South Sudan minister said Friday after Bashir agreed to hold a summit. The neighbours agreed in September to set up a demilitarised border zone and resume oil exports from landlocked South Sudan through Sudan. Oil is the lifeline of both economies. Neither country has yet withdrawn its army from its side of the border, a precondition to resume oil flows. Both sides accuse the other of supporting rebels on the other's territory. South Sudan initially planned to resume exports by year-end after shutting down its output of 350,000 barrels a day in January after failing to agree an export fee with Sudan. On Wednesday, Bashir said he was ready to meet Kiir after the African Union urged both to hold a summit as soon as possible. Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn visited Khartoum and Juba this week to mediate between the presidents. "Our president had sent him (Bashir) an invitation before, which is still open, and we believe our president has all along been open to a serious and meaningful meeting with the president of Sudan," South Sudan's Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told Reuters. "Since the message was brought to us by his excellency the prime minister of Ethiopia ... we believe that President Omar Al-Bashir will honour the meeting," Benjamin said. He did not say when the meeting would take place. Delegations from both countries are scheduled to resume talks in Ethiopia in mid-January. South Sudan seceded from Sudan under the provision of a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war. But both countries have yet to demarcate their disputed border that straddles oil production facilities. They are also at odds over Abyei, a contested area between Sudan and South Sudan, prized for its fertile grazing land.
