PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd – South Sudan

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.

Sudan: Official Says Juba Want to Bring Border Dispute Before International Justice

World’s newest nation South Sudan battles to open embassies
Sun Jun 10, 2012

* South Sudan eyes stronger presence in Asian nations

* Country mired in ongoing row with Sudan

* Juba was “surprised” by reaction to border fight

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA, June 10 (Reuters) – South Sudan has set up only about a dozen embassies in the year since the world’s newest nation declared independence and an oil output shutdown is slowing efforts to expand its diplomatic presence abroad, the foreign minister said.

South Sudan entered the world stage when it broke away from Sudan in July last year under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

The country is now eager to boost its presence in Asian countries including China, India and Malaysia – all potential sources of capital for infrastructure projects and development aid, Foreign Minister Nhial Deng told Reuters in an interview.

So far Juba has managed to establish only about half of the 22 embassies it set as its initial goal, and might be further hampered since shutting down oil production in January amid a row with Khartoum over transit fees, said Deng.

“We already have a mental picture for where we want to go, an idea of which are the countries that are important for us to establish embassies in. The only hurdle is resource constraints,” he said.

Some embassies are not fully functioning and in Western Europe, South Sudan has embassies only in London, Paris and Brussels, diplomats have said.

Strengthening diplomacy is particularly important for the new nation as it tries to make its side of the story heard in a long-running dispute with Khartoum over issues left unresolved after the partition.

Those include the exact position of the new border, the status of citizens on each other’s territory, the division of debt and, vitally, how much the landlocked South should pay to export oil through pipelines running through Sudan.

South Sudan took about three-quarters of Sudan’s crude output when it split away, but the two failed to agree on transit fees. Juba shut down output in January after Khartoum started taking some oil it said was to make up for unpaid fees.

That instantly erased 98 percent of government revenues in South Sudan, which has almost no industry outside oil and is struggling to build a functioning state almost from scratch.

Tensions boiled over in April when South Sudan and Sudan clashed in an oil-producing border region, pushing the two closer to an all-out war than at any time since independence.

South Sudan seized the Heglig oilfield near the disputed border from Khartoum’s control, sparking widespread international criticism and pressure for it to pull out.

“We were surprised by the ferocity of the reaction but I think we managed to blunt this criticism and this attitude by availing the facts about the situation,” said Deng.

He said the South had managed to present “factual historical information” showing Heglig had not always been part of “what is now the republic of Sudan”.

“For the first time now you find that the international community is no longer 100 percent sure that Heglig belongs to the north,” he said. (Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5E8HA22Y20120610?sp=trueWorld’s newest nation South Sudan battles to open embassies

AllAfrica.com – ‎
Khartoum — South Sudan wants the Addis Ababa talks to fail because they intend to resort to the international arbitration, said Sudanese defense minister and head of the country’s delegation to the security talks in Addis Ababa.
AllAfrica.com –
By Luka Biong Deng, 9 June 2012 The roadmap adopted by African Union (AU) came as a result of the failure of Sudan and South Sudan to reach an agreement on the post-secession issues, which degenerated into war that threatened regional peace and 
Sudan Vision – ‎
Meetings of the Abyei Committee between the Sudan and South Sudan in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, broke down amid divergence of views between the two sides on administrative and civil issues in the area, but the two sides agreed to hold a second 
StarAfrica.com – ‎Jun 8, 2012‎
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 8, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ — On 29 May 2012, the Lead Negotiating Panel of the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan resumed negotiations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the implementation of 

About Post Author