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Two Sudan's unlikely to seal deal

Sudan and South Sudan are unlikely to seal a comprehensive agreement before a deadline expires on Thursday, raising the spectre of UN sanctions against the two former warring neighbours.

 

Despite some softening of both sides’ positions, they remain far apart on inflammatory disputes ranging from security to oil that have returned the pair to conflict since South Sudan’s secession last year.

 

“We have made some progress on oil and other issues, but I don’t think we will reach conclusion or agreement before August 2,” Sabir Hassan, head of Sudan’s economic negotiating team, told the Financial Times from Addis Ababa where he is attending African Union-brokered talks.

 

The elapse of the deadline will prove a critical test for the resolve of the UN Security Council, which threatened punitive action should the two nations fail to follow a three-month African Union road map that stipulated an imposed solution if none was reached independently.

 

Both the AU and the UN must decide whether sticks or carrots will work best and whether one side or the other – both regularly accused of brinkmanship and blocking the process – is more culpable. Diplomats say punitive action also risks backfiring – Sudan is already under a host of US and other sanctions, while South Sudan has little that can be sanctioned because it has almost no income.

 

“We are wanting to see how they’re going to impose a solution on us,”

said Mr Hassan. “Sanctions will not make the South export its oil through the north, and we already have sanctions. How do sanctions work in this case?”

 

UN diplomats in the US say the Security Council will take its lead from AU lead negotiator and former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki, who will brief the UN following the expiry of the deadline. Several expect him to encourage change in the right direction and set new deadlines, despite noting “rather slow and uneven” progress previously, but the US may prove more bullish. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton will visit South Sudan this week to encourage a deal.

 

Both countries already face economic crises that threaten domestic political stability after South Sudan closed down oil production as part of its dispute with Khartoum in January, depriving Juba of 98 per cent of its revenues and sparking inflation in the north, where foreign exchange runs critically short.

 

While several last-ditch high-profile efforts to reach a deal have failed, some diplomats still hold out hope for a repeat meeting between the two heads of state, after a July handshake signified the warmest relations in months, despite Khartoum this week turning down such an offer.

 

“We’ve thrown experts at this for the last five years … but this is about senior big-man politics; it just comes down to those two,” said a senior western diplomat in Juba of South Sudan President Salva Kiir and Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, who is indicted on war crimes charges for his role in Darfur violence.

 

“It’s going to be a rough week [but] we are still hopeful that something will come out of it. I would not put all the cards in the bin just yet – they both know how serious we are. The UN put the threat of sanctions in there for a reason,” said the diplomat, citing the possibility of targeted sanctions including travel bans and asset freezes.

 

Mr Hassan said Sudan had accepted South Sudan’s latest improved offer of a $3bn financial transfer for Khartoum, to be staggered over three and a half years, and said Sudan has so far reduced its demands for fees to transport southern-produced oil through northern export infrastructure from $36 a barrel to $22, a reduction it in any case stands to recoup via the financial transfer.

 

Pagan Amum, lead negotiator for the south, most recently raised the southern offer from under $1 a barrel to close to $10 a barrel.

 

“On oil we are now willing to compromise and go down if they’re willing to go up and we meet somewhere in the middle,” said Mr Hassan.

 

The European Coalition on Oil in Sudan, a collection of NGOs and lobby groups, said this week however that Sudan should accept the deal, which it deems a “reasonable offer” on the commercial front, combined with “unheard of” levels of budget support.

 

The AU is separately negotiating humanitarian access to Sudan’s borderlands, where Sudan is fighting rebels it says are supported by the South. Diplomats say any escalation in violence could draw the South back into conflict.

 

Additional reporting by Geoff Dyer in Washington

 

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