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KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's parliament passed a law on Wednesday governing the oil-producing Abyei region's right to join the country's southern region if it secedes, or to remain part of the north.

But lawmakers said problems remained about who in Abyei would be allowed to vote on the question in a ballot that will coincide with a referendum in the south in a little over a year on whether southern Sudan should go its own way.

In a 2005 peace deal which ended more than two decades of civil war, Abyei was a major bone of contention and the region remains a possible flashpoint for a return to conflict.

The dominant northern National Congress Party and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which formed a coalition government after the 2005 deal, voted for the law. But some lawmakers said significant problems remained.

The law allows for the people of Abyei, in central Sudan, to choose whether to remain in the north or join the south, which many analysts expect to secede in a simultaneous vote in January 2011.

It gives the Ngok Dinka tribe and other Sudanese who reside in Abyei the right to vote. A simple majority will decide the region's future.

Prominent lawmakers from the nomadic Missiriya tribe, who graze cattle a few months a year in Abyei, walked out of parliament, saying they wanted the same status as the Ngok Dinka.

"What happened today was a conspiracy against the Missiriya," said Mahdi Babo Nimr, a senior Missiriya figure.