20100927
reuters

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Sudan's vice president on Monday urged U.N. member states to forgive the debts of Africa's largest country in order to strengthen prospects for peace ahead of a referendum on independence for south Sudan.

The International Monetary Fund has said that Sudan has some $35 billion of external debt. Since signing a peace deal in 2005 that ended Africa's longest civil war between the country's north and south, Sudan has asked for debt relief, which makes Khartoum ineligible for IMF and World Bank loans.

"From this rostrum we call for the forgiving of the debts of Sudan according to the same standards applied to the least developed countries," Vice President Ali Osman Taha of Sudan's national government in Khartoum told the U.N. General Assembly.

"This will help fight the trend that leads to confrontations and destabilization," he said.

Taha and the president of the semi-autonomous south, Salva Kiir, vowed last week to work for peace as U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders pressured them to hold a planned referendum on southern independence, scheduled for January 9, peacefully and on time.

Worry is mounting as preparations for the vote, along with another plebiscite on the fate of the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei, fall far behind schedule.

Taha said a declaration of the intention to forgive Sudan's debts would dispel doubts inside Sudan about the southern referendum and help negotiations between the north and south on post-referendum arrangements.

A successful southern referendum could bring a conclusion to one of Africa's most bitter conflicts, which has rumbled on since around the time of Sudan's independence in the 1950s. The south is widely expected to choose secession over remaining under Khartoum.