By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council discussed on Tuesday
possibly imposing sanctions on Sudan and South Sudan if the African neighbors did not stop border clashes that were
threatening to spiral into full-scale war, said the U.S. envoy to the United Nations.
calling on nuclear weapons states to scrap their arsenals during the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in
New York, September 24, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Fighting along the ill-defined border between the former civil-war foes has led to a standoff over
the Heglig oil field after it was seized a week ago by troops from South Sudan, which declared independence last
year.
The 15-nation Security Council reiterated its call for a “complete, immediate, unconditional” end to all
fighting and for Sudan to stop air strikes and South Sudan to withdraw troops from the vital oil field.
“Council
members discussed ways to leverage the influence of the council to press the parties to take these steps, and included in
that a discussion potentially of sanctions,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told reporters.
Rice,
who is the Security Council president for April, gave no further details on possible sanctions that could be
imposed.
“Members expressed grave concern over the situation and committed to make every effort to convince the
parties to cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table,” she said.
South Sudan’s envoy in New York
expressed the hope that diplomacy could help prevent a war but warned that her country would not give up its
territory.
“We believe that the current crisis can be resolved through negotiated and agreed upon solutions,” South
Sudan’s U.N. envoy Agnes Oswaha told reporters.
“We are not going to go for the offense because we are for peace,”
she said. “However, we will stand on the defense and defend our territory.”
Distrust runs deep between the neighbors,
who are at loggerheads over the position of their border, how much the landlocked south should pay to transport its oil
through Sudan, and the division of national debt, among other issues.
South Sudan has accused Sudan of launching air
strikes on some of its major oilfields. Sudan has denied launching air strikes but said its ground forces had attacked
southern artillery positions that had fired on the north.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan in July, six months after a
referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war that killed more than 2 million people.