Khartoum: Sudan termed South Sudan government as an ‘enemy’ amid growing border tensions and called to recover possession of a disputed oil-producing region.
South Sudan, which became an independent state last July, got control of the contested Heglig oilfield on last Tuesday, making Sudan to respond abruptly and it vowed to regain control of the area by all means.
Speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir on Monday accused Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)—a South Sudan’s ruling party—of being a risk to the north.
“We declare that we will confront the SPLM until we end its rule of the South, and will work to gather our resources to realise this aim,” he said. “We are in a battle that does not finish with the recovery of Heglig, but with an end to the danger that comes from South Sudan.”
The assembly described the SPLM government as ‘an enemy’, but it did not clarify the full implications of the decision.
South Sudanese Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin called the decision ‘ludicrous’. “How can they call us an enemy?” he expressed.
South Sudan insists Heglig is justifiably part of it and says it will not withdraw its forces unless the United Nations deploys a neutral force to monitor a truce.
It accused Khartoum on Sunday of reducing the oil facility “to rubble” in an air strike, an accusation denied by Sudan.
“If any damage has occurred in Heglig it may have been on the part of the army of South Sudan,” Sudanese Information Minister Abdallah Ali Masar said.
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