Talks in Sudan as Oil Deadline Looms

The head of the African Union High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki, will arrive in Khartoum today accompanied by the Ethiopian foreign minister Tedros Adhan to hold consultations on the implementation of the joint cooperation agreement between Sudan and South Sudan.

In September of last year, both Sudan and South Sudan signed a series of cooperation agreements, which covered oil, citizenship rights, security issues, banking, border trade among others.

Last March, the two countries signed an implementation matrix for these cooperation agreements.

But last June, the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir ordered the closure of all pipelines carrying oil from South Sudan. He said that the move was in response to South Sudan's funding of rebels fighting his government.