South Sudan Says Will Not Arrest Bashir during Visit to Juba

South Sudan said Saturday it will not arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, during an upcoming visit to the newly independent nation.

South Sudan said fears by former civil war foe Sudan that Bashir would be arrested when he visits Juba on April 3 were unfounded as he had been invited by his southern counterpart Salva Kiir.

“That itself is an assurance. You don’t invite someone as a trick,” Pagan Amum, the secretary general of the South’s ruling SPLM party told reporters upon his return from Khartoum where he delivered Kiir’s invitation to Bashir.

“President Bashir will be protected as a guest of state, as a head of state and the government of South Sudan is under the obligation to… build peaceful relations with the republic of Sudan and that is the business that President Bashir is coming for,” he added.

Members of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) have voiced concerns that the invitation is a ruse by South Sudan to avenge decades of civil war in which an estimated two million people died.

“I would like to allay all the fears by NCP or by any concerned South Sudanese that the aim of inviting President Bashir is because we have business that is not finished. It is a business of peace, it is a business of interest of the people of South Sudan,” Amum said.

Amum, the South’s top negotiator in African Union-led talks on outstanding issues between the two countries after the south’s independence last July, said Bashir had accepted Kiir’s invitation.

The two leaders will sign an agreement struck at the latest round of AU talks in Ethiopia to demarcate an oil-rich border area and safeguard the rights of citizens in each other’s countries.

Relations between Sudan and South Sudan worsened in late January, when the south shut down oil production that accounts for 98 percent of its revenues in a fierce oil row in which Juba accused Khartoum of “stealing” its crude.

The two nations are still at odds over the South’s use of Khartoum’s pipeline and refinery to export its oil.

Amum said that after the first deals were signed, the two presidents would meet with the AU and negotiating teams to work on agreements about the thorny issues of oil and contested border areas.

“Then they can proceed in this new positive environment to discuss all the issues and help reach agreement with in a very clear time frame, hopefully a month or two. This is the result of our mission to Khartoum and the letter that we delivered to Bashir,” he said.

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