国际英语新闻：Post-referendum period marks era of political dispute in Sudan

KHARTOUM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- As the polling process of the south Sudan referendum ended on Saturday, north and south Sudan enter a new transition period, which observers describe as "era of political dispute" between the two sides.

"The transition period could see waves of political disputes between the two sides as for sensitivity of the outstanding issues, " Khalid Dirar, a political scientist at al-Rasid Center for Studies and Researches in Khartoum, told Xinhua.

"The two sides have agreed to delay the thorny issues until the referendum after they failed to reach consensus and therefore, the post-referendum stage would witness a fateful political struggle," he added.

Dirar further stressed that the remaining phase of the transition period was very short considering the size of the outstanding issues which necessitate marathon negotiations between the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

"The coming phase needs the two sides to speed up completing what could contribute to preserving the long-standing history between the two peoples of north and south Sudan," he said.

The South Sudan Referendum Act has committed the two parties to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to enter in negotiations aiming at achieving an agreement on the essential issues in the post-referendum phase and stipulated that those negotiations be attended by all the organizations and countries which signed the CPA.

Many outstanding issues emerge that could spark tension during the transition period including the issues of difference over border, the dispute over the oil-rich area of Abyei, the Blue Nile and south Kordofan areas, nationality, ownership, oil, water, joint military integrated units, the international agreements and conventions, currency, external debts and the national assets.

Khalid El-Nur, a Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua that the issue of the border constituted the biggest concern that is threatening to spark security tensions between north and south Sudan during the transition period.

"It must be noted that the expected south Sudan state, should the referendum resulted in separation, would not be of known borders. This is a time bomb that is waiting to go off at any time unless the two parties defuse it," he said.

"I do not expect the two parties would manage to complete the border demarcation during the transition period which is six months because it is known that the borderline between north and south Sudan is very long and there are many areas that represent points of difference between the two sides," he added.

"And since the border issue is concerned with five areas in south Sudan, yet the most dangerous one is the Abyei area, where the Mesiria tribe insists on its right to vote in the area's referendum, while the SPLM, which supports the Dinka Ngok tribe insists that only the Dinka has the right to vote," he said.