{"id":8750,"date":"2012-04-12T12:15:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T12:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=8750"},"modified":"2012-04-12T12:15:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T12:15:01","slug":"au-urges-south-sudan-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/12\/au-urges-south-sudan-withdrawal\/","title":{"rendered":"AU urges South Sudan withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/AU.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/AU.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"AU\" width=\"304\" height=\"171\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8753\" \/><\/a>The African Union has demanded South Sudan withdraw its troops from the Heglig oilfield, in Sudanese territory.<\/p>\n<p>Fighting has continued for a second day between Sudan and South Sudan in the disputed border regions.<\/p>\n<p>The AU says it is deeply alarmed and called on both sides to exercise the utmost restraint.<\/p>\n<p>Khartoum says it is withdrawing from negotiations with South Sudan and has complained to the UN and the AU about South Sudan\u2019s \u201caggression\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A military spokesman for South Sudan told the BBC his troops were coming under aerial bombardment north of Heglig.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Destruction\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The BBC\u2019s James Copnall in Khartoum says that Sudan relies on the oilfield for a sizeable part of its budget.<\/p>\n<p>Sudan has vowed to use \u201call legitimate means\u201d to retake the oil fields, and has warned of \u201cdestruction\u201d in the south.<\/p>\n<p>The fighting is the most serious conflict between the neighbours since South Sudan seceded in July last year.<\/p>\n<p>In January, land-locked South Sudan, which depends on oil sales for 98% of its revenue, shut down all of its oil fields in a row over the fees Sudan demands to transit the oil.<\/p>\n<p>A presidential summit, which was to have been held in South Sudan\u2019s capital, Juba, at the beginning of April, has been postponed indefinitely because of the recent violence.<\/p>\n<p>A senior Sudanese official, Ibrahim Ghandour, says South Sudan\u2019s actions mean reconciliation efforts are now off the agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot talk about peace while there is an aggression,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they want peace, they have to pull their forces from the territory of Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But South Sudan\u2019s military spokesman, Colonel Philip Aguer, says his forces are simply acting in self-defence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe pursued them up to Heglig,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think this is our right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have never aggressed anybody. We have never crossed into the territories of the Republic of Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the African Union called upon both countries to resolve this and all other outstanding issues \u201cin a peaceful way in accordance with the overriding principle of establishing two viable states in Sudan and South Sudan\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Correspondents say Sudan, having lost most of its oil when the south seceded, will not tolerate losing any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The African Union has demanded South Sudan withdraw its troops from the Heglig oilfield, in Sudanese territory. Fighting has continued [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[1496,657,2037,1272],"class_list":["post-8750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-au","tag-oil","tag-omar-al-bashil","tag-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}