Mbeki in Sudan for crisis talks

Khartoum, 18 May – (ANA) - Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has arrived in Khartoum to attempt to restart negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan.

The African Union's mediator is due to meet Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir to try to set out an agenda and timetable for talks. Heavy fighting between Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan brought them to the verge of war last month. The UN has threatened sanctions if the situation is not resolved swiftly. For that, the two countries need to sit round the negotiating table, but the latest round of fighting has derailed talks. The two countries are also still to agree on what rights their citizens should have in the other - some 500,000 Southerners are now foreigners in Sudan, along with some 80,000 northerners in the South.

A deadline for a group of some 15,000 Southerners to leave Sudan expires on Sunday - the first group has already started flying to the South, a country some of them had never visited before. In addition to meeting President Bashir and other senior officials in Khartoum, Mr Mbeki is expected to travel to the South's capital Juba to try to get the two sides to agree to new talks. (ANA)

FA/ANA/18 May 2012--------