Sudan renews commitment to cooperate with South Sudan

Sudan on Wednesday renewed its commitment to implement the cooperation agreement with South Sudan for achieving peace and stability and further cooperation between the two countries.

The State Minister for the Presidency, Dr Al Rasheed Haroun, said after the meeting of subcommittee of the joint oversight committee, headed by Vice President Hassabo Mohamed, that the meeting was meant to ensure the joint cooperation agreement is implemented in full and simultaneously, the official Sudanese News Agency (SUNA) reports.

Dr Haroun said that the meeting listened to reports by sub-committees of the high committee on the level of implementation of the agreement, and discussed the steps underway for reactivating work with their southern counterparts.

He added that the meeting discussed current achievements to hold a political securities committee meeting in Khartoum next month.

The political committee, headed by the Defence Ministers of both countries, is scheduled to meet the end of this month in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, to discuss border demarcation.

The meeting urged the government of South Sudan to speed-up reactivating their own committees implement the agreement.

Border opened

In January this year, Sudan’s President Al Bashir ordered the opening of the Sudan-South Sudan border for the first time since the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

There is still no firm agreement over the 2,010km border between the two countries. Both sides claim areas rich with oil.

Another source of tension is the transit fees charged by Sudan for South Sudanese oil, which must flow through Sudanese pipelines to reach the export point at Port Sudan.