20110312
xinhua

KHARTOUM, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) on Saturday decided to suspend dialogue with the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), accusing the party of seeking to topple the government of south Sudan.

"The SPLM has decided to suspend the dialogue with the NCP because of its policies and its support of the armed militia in south Sudan," Pagan Amum, the secretary general of the SPLM and the peace minister in the government of south Sudan, said at a press conference.

Amum said his government had detailed information of a plan by the NCP to topple the south Sudan government before July 9, 2011, which is the end of the transitional period stipulated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) inked between north and south Sudan in 2005.

"The militia and groups which are attacking the south Sudan government are supported by the national congress, therefore, we want to suspend the dialogue concerning the outstanding issues between the two sides until the national congress stops its policies and plots against south Sudan," he said.

He added that the NCP was trying to push the Arab Mesiria tribe into a confrontation with the south Sudan government and to cripple the Abyei protocol.

Tens of people were killed in recent clashes between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and a rebel militia in Upper Nile State in south Sudan and in other battles between the Mesiria tribe and SPLA fighters at the country's disputed oil-rich area of Abyei.

SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer recently accused the Sudanese army of supporting the rebel militia in the south and said that the centers of those militia were in Khartoum and that they were sent to the south by the Sudanese Armed Forces.

The southerners voted in a referendum this January for the separation of south Sudan, where the two parties to the CPA, the NCP and the SPLM, embarked on negotiations, including the Abyei issue.

The two sides need to settle the outstanding issues before the end of the transitional period when south Sudan would be formally declared independent.