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.
Salva Kiir speaks during a joint news conference, before Kiir's departure at Khartoum Airport October 9, 2011.
REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
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.
