201010
africanews

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused the country's southern autonomous leadership of breaking terms of a peace deal. He warned a conflict could re-erupt if the two sides did not resolve disputes before referendum vote. al-Bashir's speech raised the stakes in a war of words between Khartoum and former rebel group of the Sudan people's liberation movement (SPLM), the south government.

The president said he is still committed to hold the referendum on the south’s independence, which is planned to take place on 9th January, 2011 but insisted both sides first had to settle differences over the site of their borders. He said they must also think of how to share oil, debt and Nile river water.

“A new conflict between the north and south will ensue if there was a failure to address these issues before the referendum and that such a conflict could be more dangerous than the one that took place before the peace agreement,” said Bashir, according to the Sudan’s news
agency.

The 2005 peace agreement said northern and southern leaders must try to make unity "attractive" to southerners before the vote.

But south Sudan president Silva Kiir has said in the southern capital Juba that he would not vote for unity earlier in this month.

Northern and southern leaders have been taken negotiations for months on issues including how they would share out oil revenues after the vote.

The SPLM has insisted a lack of progress in the talks should not be used as an excuse to delay the scheduled start of the referendum on January 9, 2011.

The north and south peace deal in 2005 had ended Africa’s longest civil war that killed about two million people and displaced another four million.