E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Jenny Vaughan / AFP - Getty Images
African Union lead mediator Thabo Mbeki speaks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday to announce that Sudan and South Sudan have reached an agreement on how to share the oil riches controlled by Khartoum.
Landlocked South Sudan said it has a struck a deal with Sudan over oil exports through Sudan's pipelines, but the agreement won't go into effect until border issues are resolved, Khartoum officials said.
In a statement Saturday, South Sudan's government said that it will pay approximately $9.48 a barrel to transport its fuel through Sudan's pipelines.
The White House praised the deal and encouraged agreement on humanitarian issues as well.
South Sudan says the agreement on pipeline transportation fees will last for three and a half years, after which the countries may negotiate lower rates or South Sudan, which expects to have constructed a pipeline through Kenya, will stop using Sudan's pipeline.
A row over the sharing of the two countries' once-unified oil industry prompted South Sudan to shut down its 350,000-thousand-barrel-a-day oil production. Oil also sparked a dangerous military confrontation between the two sides in April, when South Sudan captured the disputed town of Heglig, which is responsible for more than half of Sudan's oil production.
The U.N. Security Council had given the African neighbors until Thursday to resolve all conflicts left over from South Sudan's secession a year ago under a 2005 peace agreement.
Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who on Friday urged the two nations to resolve bitter disputes that earlier this year pushed the countries to the brink of war, welcomed announcement of the oil pact.
“This agreement reflects leadership and a new spirit of compromise on both sides,” she said in a prepared statement obtained by NBC News.
“As I said in Juba yesterday, the interests of their people were at stake. … The future of South Sudan is now brighter.”
"For Sudan, too, this agreement offers a way out of the extreme economic stress it is now experiencing,” Clinton said. “If Sudan would now also take the steps to peace in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, and if it will respect the rights of all citizens, it can likewise give its people a brighter future.”
Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter
Clinton is on an 11-day tour of Africa.
President Barack Obama, in a White House statement obtained by NBC News, said, "The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan deserve congratulations for reaching agreement and finding compromise on such an important issue, and I applaud the efforts of the international community which came together to encourage and support the parties in finding a resolution. ... I am also encouraged by the announcement of a possible agreement on humanitarian access to Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and urge the immediate implementation of this agreement to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to people in these areas."
The oil deal was announced in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki said, "It's an (oil) agreement about all of the matters. The issues that were outstanding were charges for transportation, for processing, transit," Mbeki, the former South African president, told reporters.
"What will remain (now)...is to then discuss the steps as to when the oil companies should be asked to prepare for the resumption of production and export," Mbeki said.
He gave no time frame, saying only the parties had until Sept. 22 to resolve border security and other conflicts.
The two sides, deeply mistrustful of each other, have often not implemented previous agreements and still need to mark their 1,200-mile border and resolve charges both have made of supporting rebels in the other’s territory.
This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.
More world stories from NBC News:
- UN General Assembly condemns Syrian regime; Russia and China balk
- Cholera threatens displaced Congolese
- Belarus, Sweden kick out ambassadors as teddy bear war heats up
- Reuters confirms hackers posted fake Syria news story on its service
- Olympic hosts: Londoners open their homes to the world
- President: Mexico gang-related deaths fall by 15 percent in 2012
- Baby elephant orphaned in slaughter finds a foster mom
- Images: The lives of Syrian rebels fighting for freedom
Leave a Comment:
Take note America, Sudan just struck a deal to help their country.
It's 2 countries. Sudan and South Sudan. The oilfields are in the south and the only pipeline runs through Sudan and they have been stealing it. The oilfields are still disputed as to who owns them. There has been much murder and will be more as both countries want the oil of course.
Sudan haven't they learned anything...they need to out source more and keep the filthy rich rich...what is wrong with those people...
For decades the conflicts within Sudan are about oil in the southern Sudan region. As hundreds of billions of barrel of oil have been discovered in the shallow oil fields of southern Sudan, the money hungry Arabs are drawn to southern Sudan as if it were a second Mecca. The Arabs of the Khartom government, a legacy of Arab exploitation, colonization and conquest of North Africa, want to seize the oil resources in southern Sudan from the several discordant African tribes. Despite the in-fighting among themselves, the African tribes resisted the Arab take-over.
In response the Arab government sent vicious mercenary forces supported by helicopter gunships into southern Sudan to intimidate, to kill, to rape, to pillage, and to displace the various African tribes. Many were driven off their land. The surviving Africans fled into neighboring countries or settled in UN refugee camps. After over a decade of struggle, Sudan was partitioned into North and South Sudan not for the benefit of the African people but for the international oil barrons.
For hundreds of years, the European and Arabs have carved-up, drained, and looted the African continent of its natural and human resources, especially the egregious kidnapping of Africans for the trafficking of slaves to North America. Today, the market demand for African slaves has vanished. In its place, African oil.
Seizing the oil field by whatever means necessary, The Arabs of Khartom government is implementing the same brutal past exploitation of African people in south Sudan as during the European Colonial Era. And the western nations stand-by, sit on their hands and wait for the golden opportunity when the Arabs procure their logistic and techical support to develope the oil fields. African flesh and blood has never been so cheap.
Imperial interest for money and oil drove this. Not a dang thing humanitarian about it.
The Curse of Oil.
Pipeline ....
Ring a bell Obama .... "LOL"
Oh Yea
Benny has crabs.
Sudan is another example of ,Arab's killing ,and running black Africans of their land and stealing their country, while the world sits by and watches.The only reason the Sudanese stood their ground in the south, is because they are Christians and they were driven from the north. They finally took a stand and formed their own country.