20101020
africanews

Sudan president Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised that there will be no return to civil war with the south as a war of words between Khartoum and Juba rose.

Bashir, who had already warned that a conflict could re-erupt if the two sides did not resolve disputes before referendum vote, insisted his government was working for peace.

"There will be no return to war. The government is working to keep the peace," said president Bashir, according to the official SUNA news agency.

"The referendum result will not be the end of the world," he added. Last week, Bashir accused the country’s southern autonomous leadership of breaking terms of a peace deal.

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.

Days after Bashir’s speech, south Sudan president Salva Kiir vowed that the country would not return to civil war. "We do not want Abyei to become a potential trigger for a conflict again between the south and the north," Kiir said.

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

But south Sudan president 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 negotiating for months on issues including how they would share 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.

Southern leaders have warned that if there is any major delay by the Khartoum government in organizing the referendum, they will go ahead and hold a vote on their own.

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.