20110112
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudan will want to strengthen ties with sub-Saharan Africa, the West and beyond after its expected secession, but will have to tread carefully if it wants to avoid antagonising its old rulers in Khartoum.

People from the oil-producing south on Tuesday started their third day of voting in a referendum on whether they should declare independence. Even hard-line unionists in the north now accept they will choose to split Sudan in two.

Once that happens, the most important economic and diplomatic relationship for an independent south Sudan will remain with Khartoum -- the south's economy is almost entirely dependent on oil and its only pipelines snake across the north.

But the south's more natural allies, with shared cultural and religious links, will lie in non-Arab Africa, most obviously its neighbours to the south Kenya and Uganda.

Sudan's first challenge will be to find ways of building on those relationships -- and stepping up trade and aid from the West and other international allies -- without jeopardising its pipeline link to the Red Sea.

That may not be easy. Khartoum is already rumbling.

"Our main fear is that they (south Sudan) may host some enemies of Sudan," Ibrahim Ghandour, a senior member of the north's ruling National Congress Party (NCP) told Reuters.

"We already know about Israel which sees Sudan as one of its enemies. We know of its role in the south. We can also see the agenda of (President Yoweri) Museveni of Uganda. Museveni himself worked in a very clear and structured way to separate the south ... so that he can take its natural resources."