Khartoum, rebels embark on formulating resource sharing agreement

The spokesman for southern rebels of Sudan, Yasser Araman, said in a press statement that the committee representing the Sudanese government and the movement is currently embarking on formulating an agreement on sharing oil resources, concluded by the two sides on Saturday following difficulties the negotiations.

Araman added from Nivasha resort in Kenya, where the negotiations are taking place, that a great progress was actually achieved in other files of negotiations, noting that the two sides started, since Saturday evening, a dialogue on the issues pertinent to the three areas of al-Nouba mountains, Eibi and the Blue Nile.

The spokesman for the movement said that discussing issues on sharing the authority will come in the last phase, after completing fully the issues of resource sharing, and what is known as margined areas.

Araman stressed that the negotiations are made directly between John Garang and Sudan's vise president without a mediator. He expressed his optimism to achieve more progress, stressing that this does not mean difficulty in currently debated issues.

Sudanese press sources said that according to the resource sharing agreement, whose items were not announced yet, each of the north and the south will get a percentage of 50% of oil revenues in the south, while the southern movement announced giving up its share of the oil of the north, and thereby the two sides avoided the biggest obstacle in a way to reach that would allow proceeding into a final agreement.

Sudan produces some 300,000 barrels of oil daily, representing 43% of the government's revenues, according to the ministry of energy and mines.

News reports said that the US Secretary Of State Colin Powell interfered to accelerate the negotiations after it had stumbled because of differences over the distribution of oil revenues, and made two telephone calls with the Sudanese vice president and the leader of southern rebels.

Moreover, the UN secretary general Kofi Annan made a telephone call with the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir congratulating him on the "positive progress" in the peace negotiations, according to the Sudanese News agency.