JUBA, Sudan (AFP) — Southern Sudan on Monday warned Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak that regional instability could also destabilise his country and urged Cairo to put pressure on Khartoum to move ahead with a three-year-old peace agreement.
“He said Egypt should continue working towards regional peace,” southern Sudan press secretary Ayom Wol quoted the leader of the country’s semi-autonomous south, Salva Kiir, as telling Mubarak at talks in Juba.
“Egypt can also be destabilised by this regional instability. People are trying to help so that the situation does not get out of hand,” Wol added.
Kiir was quoted as referring to chaos following Kenyan elections, rebellion in Ethiopia, meltdown in Somalia, and the activities of a Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, in Sudan, Central African Republic and DR Congo.
Implementation of the 2005 peace agreement between north and south Sudan has crossed the half-way mark, but many of its thorniest parts have yet to be enacted ahead of a scheduled referendum in the south on independence or unity.
Kiir cited concern that border areas between north and south have not been demarcated, complicating the results of a key population census conducted in April and likely to complicate national elections scheduled in 2009.
Fighting in the contested oil district of Abyei last May was seen as the biggest threat yet to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended what was Africa’s longest running civil war in which around two million people died.
There are deep-set fears among the international community that a possible arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir for alleged crimes in Darfur could have serious repercussions on implementing the CPA.
Kiir’s office said that Egypt, as one of the international guarantors of the agreement, must put pressure on Khartoum to see that the accord is implemented.
Egypt’s official MENA news agency said Mubarak’s visit was “aimed at cementing stability and unity in Sudan”.
Mubarak stressed the ties of friendship between Egypt and the “African” south, which has testy relations with the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.
“We have so many students (in Egypt) from here and we are going to open a new university,” Mubarak told reporters in an ultra-brief statement.
In Khartoum, he held talks with Beshir, who has been accused on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The best way to find a solution to this problem (the conflict in Darfur) is the Arab and African initiative,” Mubarak told reporters.
Mubarak supports a position advocated by the African Union that Beshir be allowed time to implement a ceasefire in Darfur, where Khartoum has been accused of brutally repressing a five-year uprising.
The African Union and the Arab League have asked the UN Security Council to delay any ICC decision on whether to indict the Sudanese head of state.
The court’s judges have given the prosecution until November 17 to provide additional evidence before they decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
Sudan is seeking to avert an ICC trial and convince a sceptical West that it is serious about unblocking stalled peace efforts in Darfur.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in July accused the Sudanese leader of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, where conflict has been raging since 2003.