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by PNA

The summit between Sudan and South Sudan presidents, slated for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday is viewed as a means for the two sides to achieve a breakthrough to avoid international sanctions as the period availed by the UN Security council (UNSC) for the two countries to reach an agreement elapses Saturday.

The UNSC, in its earlier resolution 2046, threatened to impose sanctions on both countries if they failed to resolve their outstanding issues and sign an agreement in that regard.

However, observers believe that the UNSC might abandon those sanctions if the summit, to be convened in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa between Presidents of Sudan and South Sudan on Sunday, succeed.

On Friday Khartoum and Juba officially agreed on a summit between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit to push the stumbling negotiations prior to reaching a final agreement.

The two sides have failed during their recent round of negotiations to sign a comprehensive agreement on the disputed oil- rich area of Abyei, a demilitarized zone and border demarcation.

With the elapse of the UNSC period, the two sides exchanged accusation on crippling the negotiations and each party insisted that the other party was responsible for the failure of the two sides to reach a final agreement.

To this end, Badr-Eddin Mohamed Ibrahim, Spokesman of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (NCP), on Saturday told Xinhua that "Juba intended to cripple the negotiations with its insistence to include the area of Mile 14 in its borders which it handed to the African mediation."

"Juba also refuses to break the link between it and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) / northern sector which is fighting against the central government in Khartoum", he added.

During the recent round of negotiations, Juba presented a map that Khartoum said it included areas belonging to north Sudan, namely the border area of Mile 14.

However, Atim Garang, a leading member of the ruling SPLM in South Sudan, refuted that Juba intended to blow the negotiations.

"Khartoum does not want to be flexible in the negotiations, adheres to what it does not belong to it and rejects to approve the map prepared by the United Nations. This prevents reaching a final agreement", Garang told Xinhua.

He further said that Khartoum should be keener to make the summit of the two presidents successful after the round of the negotiations had failed.

He went on saying that "we will be more open in the dialogue and the other party should be so. The other party should not cripple the proposals of the African mediation to the two president's summit."

The two sides failed to complete an oil deal initialized during the previous round of negotiations while the negotiators have also delayed a signing of an agreement on the four freedoms to be signed during the summit.

In the meantime, the NCP spokesman excluded that the oil deal and the four freedoms agreement would be signed during the summit on Sunday, saying "we will not sign a separate deal. The agreement should be final and comprehensive, because what matters for us is not the oil deal but the agreement on the security file as it is the guarantee for all the other agreements."

Haile Menkerios, the UN Secretary General Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, and Thabo Mbeki, head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP) are expected to submit their final report to the UNSC regarding the negotiations between the two countries at the end of direct talks prior to the UNSC's move on imposing sanctions on the two countries according to its resolution 2046.

Although a declared summit between Presidents al-Bashir and Kiir was previously canceled after South Sudan's army occupied the oil area of Higlieg last April, but the NCP spokesman appeared more confident that the summit, slated for Sunday, would be convened and would be successful.

"If the summit failed to resolve all the differences, at least it will institute for good ties between Khartoum and Juba", said Ibrahim.

"It is true that it is not easy to resolve all the differences with a stroke of a pen, but we are optimistic that a tangible breakthrough will be achieved because both sides are keen to make the summit a success", he noted.

The disputed oil-rich area of Abyei constitutes one of the points of difference that is expected to blow the summit.

In this respect, local press reports in Khartoum said that the head of AUHIP would present to the two presidents a proposal on sharing Abyei between the two countries.

However, the NCP spokesman reiterated that the Sudanese government would not give any concessions.

"Abyei area is governed with a separate protocol embodied in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), inked between the Sudanese government and the SPLM in 2005, and this protocol should be abided by", he said.

He went on saying that "There is no proposal on sharing the area and I do not think Thabo Mbeki would propose such a vision as there is no justification for dividing the area in the first place."

In the meantime, Izz-Eddin Al-Mansour, a Sudanese political analyst and a lecturer of political sciences at Sudanese universities, downplayed possibility of the success of the summit as the two sides lack the necessary political will.

"The summit comes first to satisfy the international community and to avoid international sanctions in case the negotiations between the two sides in Addis Ababa failed", he told Xinhua.

"The outstanding issues between Khartoum and Juba are bigger than to be resolved in the summit of the two presidents as the issues are associated with other issues including the war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas", he added, pointing out that the crisis of the two areas should be included in the summit on Sunday.

South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas have been witnessing armed clashes between the Sudanese army and the SPLM /m northern sector for over a year.

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