CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Chief of General Intelligence Omar Suleiman made a quick fire visit to Sudan Wednesday in an attempt to avert the latest political crisis in the war-torn country after southern ministers resigned from the cabinet. The Egyptian officials headed to Khartoum as well as the southern stronghold of Juba to meet with both sides of the current conflict, which threatens to derail the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the conflict between the government and southern rebels. The political bureau of the southern Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) withdrew its ministers in the National Unity Government to protest what it viewed as stalled progress on certain tenets of the agreement. To the fore of these concerns are the redeployment of army troops and the demarcation of the North-South Sudan border. A foreign ministry statement quoted Aboul Gheit describing "Egypt s great concern with the aggravation of tension between the recent partners of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, as well as the escalation which resulted from the decision to withdraw the representatives of the Movement to the National Unity Government and to suspend the implementation of the Peace Agreement. Additionally, Aboul Gheit "outlined the threat this demarche poses to the future of stability and comprehensive peace in Sudan, at this critical timing, as efforts should be collaborated to support development projects and reconstruction of all [unstable] regions in Sudan. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir met members of the SPLM on Tuesday, including Vice President of South Sudan Riek Machar, in an attempt to reach a solution with the former southern rebels. However, the southern delegation was initially refused entrance into Al-Bashir's presidential compound. Al-Bashir also reshuffled the Sudanese cabinet - after delaying the process for three months - in a further attempt to appease the southerners. "This crisis is the most important issue ... and the biggest crisis in the country right now, SPLM Deputy Secretary-General Yasir Arman told Reuters. The north-south civil war in Sudan raged for 21 years, killing 2 million people and driving another 4 million from their homes in scenes reminiscent to the ongoing Darfur crisis in the Western part of the ravaged country. The civil war came to an end in 2005 when the government and rebels agreed to a power sharing system, which would ensure the rights of the southern Sudanese, an area rich in oil and other natural resources. The agreement led to the formation of a coalition government that included representatives of the south as well as a southern semi-autonomous rule over the region. Additionally, the agreement promised southerners a vote on secession by 2011.
