Untitled - orsam

each other's citizens and demarcating the
“We delivered the message to President
Bashir and he welcomed it. He expressed
his readiness to visit Juba,” the South’s
top negotiator, Pagan Amum, said in a
statement to reporters at the cabinet
offices in Sudan’s capital.
Amum, who arrived with a delegation of
ministers, said the South’s leader Salva Kiir
had invited his “brother president” to the
April 3 summit “with the aim of solving
the pending issues between the two
states.”
oil-rich border.
When South Sudan gained its
independence it took about threequarters
of Sudanese oil production but it
has no facilities of its own to export the
crude.
It would be Bashir’s first visit to the South
since it separated in July last year
following an overwhelming vote at the
end of Africa's longest war.
At the heart of their dispute has been
disagreement over how much Juba should
pay to use the northern pipeline and port.
After months of failed negotiations, a
dispute over oil fees, and mutual
accusations of backing rebels on each
other’s territory, Amum last week said
relations had turned positive after the
latest African Union-led talks in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
At those meetings the two sides reached
agreements on safeguarding the status of
The new nation shut crude production in
late January after accusing Sudan of
“stealing” its oil.
But Amum said last week that Sudan has
agreed to pay back oil it had taken, while
South Sudan would hand over months of
unpaid transit fees, although further
negotiations were still needed.
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