The United Nations should impose sanctions on Sudan for failing to obey a Security Council resolution calling for an end to hostilities and renewed negotiations with South Sudan over oil and border disputes, South Sudan's negotiator has said.
Pagan Amum yesterday said Khartoum had not complied with the May 2 resolution giving neighbours Sudan and South Sudan, under threat of sanctions, two weeks to resume talks over their differences, which boiled over into border clashes last month.
He said while South Sudan, which became the world's newest independent nation last year, had signalled its readiness to restart talks immediately, its neighbour had carried out air attacks after May 2 and had not moved to resume negotiations.
"They have violated the timeline," Mr Amum, secretary-general of South Sudan's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), said in the South Sudanese capital Juba.
He urged the UN to "impose sanctions now and take measures against Khartoum".
A spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry said Mr Amum's remarks were "unfortunate" and accused the South of violating the Security Council resolution by continuing its "aggression" in Sudan's territory.
While insisting the South wanted to live in peace with Sudan, Mr Amum criticised both the UN and the African Union (AU) for failing to deal firmly with Sudan, which he said routinely defied the international community.
"If the UN fails to take action, they will be judged by humanity and the people of South Sudan will lose trust and confidence in them," he said.
"We are going to ask them, 'What are you going to do?'"
He said he had written to former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who is in Khartoum as head of the AU panel tasked with resolving the north-south disputes, asking when the negotiations with Khartoum would restart, but had not so far received a response.
El-Obeid Morawah, Sudan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "The Security Council and the AU have their own monitoring mechanisms and it is they who will say which side violates the decisions. I think it is better for them [South Sudan] and for us to put the negotiations first."
On Thursday, the UN demanded that Sudan immediately withdraw troops from the disputed Abyei border region, but Khartoum pledged only to do so after a joint military observer body for the area was created.
Mr Amum said South Sudan had withdrawn its police forces from Abyei in compliance with the UN demands and said Khartoum's failure to pull out its military should be punished.
The South accuses Khartoum of launching bombing raids on its territory after May 2. UN peacekeepers have verified damage and casualties from at least one raid and the UN's top human rights official said last week she was outraged by "indiscriminate" aerial attacks by Sudan.
Mr Amum added: "The UN sees it as normal for [Sudanese President Omar Hassan al] Bashir to bomb and kill the people of South Sudan. The conscience of the international community is not pricked ... they are used to it, it has become normal."
The two Sudans, which fought a civil war for more than two decades before a 2005 peace deal that eventually led to South Sudan's independence, sit on significant oil reserves.
A dispute over the fees South Sudan should pay to Sudan to export its crude through the north prompted Juba to shut off its oil production earlier this year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article