By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, July 26 -- South Sudan's ambassador Francis Nazario on Thursday detailed to the Press his government's offer to Sudan, a week before the stated deadline for an agreement.
Inner City Press read him Khartoum's rejection of the offer, and asked that South Sudan would do if no deal was reached by August 2. We believe they should accept it, Nazario said.
Sudan says that security issues come first, that it is not the right time to talk about oil even if Juba offered a $40 a barrel transfer fee. That is unlikely: South Sudan raised its offer from $1 upt o $9.10 on one pipeline, $7.26 on the other.
South Sudan proposes that in Abyei the Dinka but not Miseriya vote, and that the latter enter only unarmed. This seems unlike to be accepted.
Thabo Mbeki was slated to brief the Security Council on July 26 but did not. "He is busy with the parties," one of his supporters on the Council told Inner City Press.
Another said, he doesn't have to answer to the Council, and who wants to be associated with failure?
Inner City Press asked Nazario about Sudan's charges that South Sudan supports the SPLM-North and gives aid, including medical aid (which might be entirely legal) to the JEM rebels.
Nazario denied both. He had not mentioned the six bombs confirmed by the UN, but did when asked by Inner City Press.
It is a chess game, with the approach of the deadline on August 2 -- and even more so afterward.
A very well placed Permanent Representative on the Security Council flatly told Inner City Press on Thursday that the August 2 deadline "won't be met."
Sudan has problems not only on the border but in the capital. At Thursday's UN noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's deputy spokesman Eduardo Del Buey if Ban or Haile Menkerios had raised to Sudan the issue of detention of protesters, now including Girifna's Rudway Daud. No, appears to be the answer.
Also in terms of answers, at least as of 1:10 pm, Sudan's Ambassador or Mission had not come to reply. Watch this site.
