* Promise a major step towards peace – Carter
* Former US president said Bashir made no provisos
* Sudan, South Sudan still at loggerheads over Abyei
KHARTOUM, May 27 (Reuters) – Sudan’s President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir has said he is ready to pull troops from a disputed
border area with South Sudan, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
said on Sunday, describing it as a major step toward achieving
peace between the neighbours.
Sudan and South Sudan have been at loggerheads over a string
of disputes since the southern nation declared independence in
July. Clashes near the disputed border raised fears of an
all-out war last month.
The 2005 peace pact that paved the way for southern
secession ended decades of war between the two sides, but they
have failed to agree on the position of their shared border,
division of debt and the status of disputed areas including
Abyei.
Carter, speaking to reporters after meeting Bashir on behalf
of independent group The Elders, said the Sudanese leader told
him Sudan was ready to pull troops from Abyei.
“One of the most interesting points that he made is that he
has notified the negotiators that he is ready to withdraw troops
from Abyei, which we believe is a major step forward,” Carter
said.
Khartoum seized Abyei in May last year, prompting tens of
thousands of civilians to flee, after an attack on a Sudanese
army convoy blamed on the South.
Ethiopian peacekeepers were deployed in the region, prized
for its fertile grazing land, after the security council
initially authorised the deployment last June. South Sudan
withdrew its 700-strong police force from Abyei this month.
The U.N. Security Council demanded on May 17 that Sudan
immediately and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Abyei,
but Khartoum pledged only to do so after a joint military
observer body was created for the area.
Carter said Bashir did not express “any reservations or
provisos” during the meeting, but stressed he was not in Sudan
to negotiate.
“Obviously we knew in advance that there are only a very few
troops left there, and the South has withdrawn their troops, so
this is a major step forward, I believe, and it’s very good to
hear this news,” he added.
Sudan and South Sudan are scheduled to resume African
Union-brokered talks in Addis Ababa on May 29 to end hostilities
and settle remaining disputes after the border clashes scuppered
an earlier round of negotiations.
About 2 million people died in Sudan’s north-south civil
war, waged for decades over ideology, religion, ethnicity and
oil.
(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
