S. Sudan new VP to visit Khartoum

KHARTOUM, Sudan – South Sudan’s new Vice President Taban Deng Gai will begin a two-day visit to Khartoum on Sunday for talks on thorny issues still outstanding from its 2011 secession, an official said.

Deng’s first visit to Sudan comes just weeks after he replaced former rebel leader Riek Machar as vice president after clashes in Juba left hundreds dead in July.

Deng will be accompanied by a delegation of ministers and advisers, South Sudan’s ambassador to Khartoum, Mayan Dout, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said Deng would discuss issues that have been outstanding since the south’s independence from Khartoum in 2011.

Unresolved issues include the status of the Khartoum-occupied border district of Abyei, which had been supposed to hold a plebiscite on its future, and the payments Juba should make for the use of an oil export pipeline through Sudan.

In June, the South Sudan ministers of foreign affairs, oil and the interior also held talks in Khartoum on the outstanding oil and border issues.

“There are some difficulties in our relations,” South Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor said at the time.

South Sudan’s oil production has virtually ground to a halt since a civil war erupted there in December 2013, when President Salva Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup.

Machar was later dismissed.

On Thursday, an aide to the ex-vice president said he had escaped to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Khartoum is hoping that an improvement in relations with Juba would help resolve persistent rebellions on both sides of the border that have sparked a prolonged war of words between the two governments.

Deng is expected to be accompanied by South Sudan’s defense and energy ministers as well as senior intelligence officials. – Rappler.com