03/12/2013 20:09 GMT
by Ian Timberlake
KHARTOUM, March 12, 2013 (AFP) - Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has accepted an invitation to visit South Sudan, his office said on Tuesday, after the two countries agreed to resume oil flows in an easing of tensions following border clashes.
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir telephoned Bashir with the invitation but no date for a summit has been set, said presidential press secretary Emad Sayed Ahmed.
"Yes, Salva Kiir asked President Bashir to visit Juba and he accepted the request," Ahmed told AFP.
African Union Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a statement that the summit would be "the next step in cementing mutually cooperative relations between them."
Months of tension and reported clashes along the undemarcated border between Sudan and South Sudan provoked international concern after the neighbours failed to implement key economic and security pacts they signed in September.
Two summits earlier this year could not break the impasse but, early Tuesday, negotiators for Sudan and South Sudan agreed to a 16-page timetable to put the nine September agreements into effect.
Major provisions include resuming the oil flow and demilitarising the disputed frontier.
The timetable sets a March 24 deadline for both Juba and Khartoum "to instruct oil companies to re-establish oil production", according to a copy of the deal seen by AFP.
African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki, a former South African president, witnessed the signing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The oil deal is worth billions of dollars in revenue to the crisis-hit economies of South Sudan and Sudan but analysts say it could take months for meaningful income to reach their treasuries, because of technical issues.
Bashir's visit to Juba would be the first since he attended South Sudan's declaration of independence on July 9, 2011, following a near-unanimous referendum vote for separation after a 22-year civil war.
Independence left key issues unresolved, including how much the South should pay for shipping its oil through Sudanese pipelines for export.
South Sudan halted crude production early last year, cutting off most of its revenue after accusing Khartoum of theft.
The two nations then fought in March and April along the border before hailing an end to conflict with the September agreements.
None of those deals was implemented, over Khartoum's accusation that South Sudan backs rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
South Sudan denies such support.
But under a timetable signed last Friday "both governments have commenced withdrawal of their armed forces from their common border" to implement the buffer zone, Dlamini-Zuma said.
"She stresses that this augurs well for the full normalisation of relations between the two countries," the AU said.
However, a regional political expert called the buffer zone deal "a big joke" that will be difficult to monitor and unlikely to succeed.
South Sudan's deputy head of mission in Khartoum, Kau Nak, told AFP he is hopeful the deals will finally take effect because of their potential to improve economic conditions in the poverty-stricken nations.
"I'm optimistic based on that," he said at his embassy, also citing international pressure and the "destructive" effects of conflict.
The timetables also allow for a re-opening of 10 border crossings and, Nak said, should provide hope for thousands of hungry, jobless South Sudanese stranded in the north and wanting to travel south.
At last count there were more than 100,000 Southerners in the Khartoum area alone but nobody really knows how many remain in Sudan's other states.
"We still have big numbers in those places. All of them are waiting for means of transport. All of them lost their jobs. All of them lost their nationalities, and nobody's supporting them," he said.
"If these agreements are implemented there will be many options," for South Sudanese to get help in moving south, or to choose a life in the north, Nak added.
strs-it/al
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