Sudan vows swift response to south’s oilfield grab

By Ulf Laessing and Alexander Dziadosz

JUBA/TALODI, Sudan (Reuters) – Sudan’s

government vowed on Thursday to deal swiftly with South Sudan’s occupation of a border oilfield but the south said it would

not pull out until the threat of attacks by the northern army had gone.

The stand-off follows clashes along the ill-defined border that have brought the former civil war

foes closer to returning to full-blown conflict than any time since South Sudan declared independence last year.

South

Sudan seized the Heglig oil field on Tuesday, drawing international condemnation including rare criticism from the United

States. Sudan has called the move a “blatant assault” on its sovereignty and demanded an immediate withdrawal.

Heglig,

which the south claims as its own, is vital to the north’s economy because the field there accounts for about half of the

country’s remaining 115,000 barrel-a-day oil output.

Ahmed Haroun, governor of Sudan’s South Kordofan border state,

said crude production had stopped in Heglig, but the army was “dealing with the situation”.

“We hope we can finish

that operation in hours,” he told reporters in the town of Talodi in South Kordofan, a state on the border with South Sudan

where Khartoum is also battling insurgents who it alleges are aligned with Juba.

With the European Union voicing “deep

concern” at the escalating conflict, the north said it was mobilising its army to retake the Heglig field, which the South

said it had seized to end attacks from Khartoum.

“There must be a mechanism so they don’t launch another attack,”

South Sudan’s Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin quoted President Salva Kiir as saying.

 

He

told Reuters in the southern capital Juba that Sudan’s air force had dropped six bombs near the oil town of Bentiu in Unity

State on the southern side of the border on Thursday, killing one soldier.

Sudan’s armed forces spokesman was not

immediately available to comment despite multiple attempts to call his mobile phone.

Sudan halted talks with Juba over

oil payments and other disputed issues after South Sudan occupied the oilfield.

“FOREIGN AGENDAS”

Officials in

the north accuse South Sudan of “using mercenary forces and rebel groups” in its attack and decried what they said was a

plot, sponsored by Juba’s foreign allies, to overthrow the government in Khartoum.

The South seceded from Khartoum’s

rule last year, but the two sides have not agreed on issues including division of national debt, the status of citizens in

each other’s territory and the exact position of the border.

Landlocked South Sudan shut down its roughly 350,000

barrel-per-day output in January in a dispute over how much it should pay to export crude via pipelines and facilities in

Sudan.

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said foreign entities were fomenting civil war in his

country.

“War is not in the interests of either people and they have chosen the path of war in the implementation of

foreign agendas,” Bashir told reporters in Khartoum.

The South seceded from Khartoum’s rule last year, but the two

sides have not agreed on issues including division of national debt, the status of citizens in each other’s territory and

the exact position of the border.

Landlocked South Sudan shut down its roughly 350,000 barrel-per-day output in

January in a dispute over how much it should pay to export crude via pipelines and facilities in Sudan.

Sudan

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said foreign forces were fomenting conflict.

“War is not in the interests of either

people and they have chosen the path of war in the implementation of foreign agendas,” Bashir told reporters in

Khartoum.

FUEL WORRIES

Motorists fearing disruption of fuel supplies formed lines at petrol stations on

Wednesday to stock up after news of the Heglig attack reached Khartoum. The government said there was no threat to

supplies.

“The national economy is stronger than the aggressors think and Sudan has enough stockpiles of basic goods,”

Sudan Council of Ministers spokesman Omer Mohamed Saleh said in comments relayed by online newspaper the Sudan

Tribune.

South Kordofan governor Haroun said all Sudan’s other fields were secure. “They are working as usual,” he

said, adding that more details about Heglig’s situation would become clear after fighting had stopped and technicians

entered the area.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said South Sudan’s move on Heglig was “completely

unacceptable” and chided the north for aerial bombardment of southern territory.

“Both parties must also stop

supporting armed groups in the territory of the other state,” Ashton said in a statement.