Sudan, South Sudan Presidents Hold a Meeting to Resolve Disputes

Presidents Omar Hassan al-Bashir of the Republic of Sudan and Silva Kiir of the Republic of South Sudan at a meeting during the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 14, 2012. The two Sudans have agreed to further talks., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Sudan, South Sudan presidents hold a meeting to resolve disputes

Sun Jul 15, 2012 2:17PM GMT
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The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan have held their first talks since a territorial dispute took the two African neighbors to the brink of an all-out war.

The hour-long meeting between Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Southern counterpart Salva Kiir came on Saturday in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa.

The meeting which was held first with aids present and then turned into a private one-on-one session of talks, ended with the two presidents shaking hands.

“They met today and...it was a good meeting,” Kiir's chief negotiator Pagan Amum told reporters after the meeting.

The recent development comes as the two nations have been urged by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council to resolve their differences which include disputes over oil resources and border demarcation.

The United Nations has set a deadline of August 2, 2012 for the neighboring countries to settle their disputes.

According to the AU’s Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra, negotiations between Khartoum and Juba over unresolved issues have been resumed on Thursday in Bahar Dar in northwestern Ethiopia.

In April, fighting between the two sides escalated over oil fields in the border town of Heglig.

Sudan accuses South Sudan, which seceded from the Republic of Sudan in July 2011, of supporting anti-government rebels operating in the Darfur region and the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

South Sudan became independent on July 9, 2011, after decades of conflict with the north.

The new oil-rich nation is one of the least developed countries in the world, with one in seven children dying before the age of five.