KHARTOUM - The leaders of Egypt and Libya Tuesday held talks with Sudanese leaders on the future of Africa's largest country ahead of a referendum that's likely to break it into two. The talks focused on the outstanding issues between the two Sudanese sides, such as the demarcation of the border and the future of the oil-rich area of Abyei on the border between north and south Sudan, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. The talks come less than three weeks before a January 9 vote in the mainly animist and Christian south of Sudan on whether the region should secede. The referendum is required under a 2005 peace accord that ended more than 20 years of civil war that left nearly 2 million people dead and the southerners scarred and suspicious of Khartoum's Muslim Arab rulers. Sudanese Presidential spokesman Emad Sayyed Ahmed told reporters in Khartoum that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had held closed talks with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir. Egypt says the Khartoum talks are designed to ensure that the referendum is held in a "climate of freedom, transparency and credibility". The aim of the talks in Khartoum is to "discuss ways to help the Sudanese partners reach agreement on outstanding issues which prevent the full realisation" of their 2005 peace accord, according to MENA. Both Libya and Egypt view Sudan as their strategic backyard and would want to see the breakup of their southern neighbour to be peaceful and avoid any massive flow of refugees into their territory as a result of renewal of fighting.
