The Sudanese government and its former southern rebel foes have signed an accord to end a dispute over the flashpoint oil-rich region of Abyei, allowing for the return of tens of thousands who fled fighting there last month.
President Omar al-Bashir signed the agreement with former rebel leader and First Vice-President Salva Kiir in Khartoum on June 8, the official SUNA news agency reported.
Besides allowing for the return of those displaced by fighting in the central region last month, the agreement includes setting up an interim administration and seeking international arbitration to resolve the dispute.
So-called Joint Integrated Units made up of troops from North and South are to deploy in the area within 10 days, the Sudan Tribune newspaper reported.
Fighting in Abyei had threatened a return to Sudan's two-decade civil war the longest in Africa which only ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.
Under the 2005 accord, the South was offered a six-year transition period of regional autonomy and participation in a unity government until a 2011 referendum on self-determination.
Halfway through the transition period, Abyei is still not governed by a functioning joint administration as stipulated in a special protocol.
The impasse has been one issue delaying implementation of the entire peace agreement. In 2011, Abyei will hold a separate referendum on whether to retain its special administrative status in the North or join the South.
North and South had rejected the findings of an Abyei border commission set up under the CPA, and will turn to "a specialized professional arbitration body".
Observers described the fighting as the worst crisis endangering the entire three-year peace process that ended the civil war between North and South Sudan, in which more than 1.5 million people were killed.
UN officials warn that up to 90,000 people may have been displaced by two rounds of fighting in May between government soldiers and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army, which flattened Abyei's once-bustling main town.
The ethnic clash in Abyei was between the Ngok Dinka generally affiliated to the South, who dominated the town and outlying villages, and nomadic Arab tribesmen known as Baggara, who migrate seasonally to graze their cattle.
© Monday Morning 2008
