Editorial: Oil Flow and the International Security Last week the UNSC issued a presidential statement appealing to Sudan not to stop the flow of South Sudanese crude through its pipeline to the international market and urged the two countries to stop supporting and harbouring rebel groups. The Security Council urges the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan to maintain dialogue to ensure continued transportation of oil from South Sudan, and the Government of Sudan to suspend any actions to halt the transportation of oil from South Sudan to allow these mechanisms to complete their work,. The statement further called on the two countries to expedite the implementation of the nine cooperation agreements, to activate all the relevant mechanisms, to cooperate with the African mediation and to "refrain from pursuing any actions that run counter to these objectives" The members of the joint security committee from both sides met this week in Khartoum where they reiterated their will to stop support to rebel groups and to cooperate in this regard with the needed transparency and seriousness. It seems that the government of Sudan understood very well the motives of the UNMSC directives for the continuation of South Sudan oil flow through the pipelines of Sudan, and that was apparent when South Sudan paid to Sudan the transit fees as per cooperation agreement. According to Central Bank of Sudan, the documents received from South Sudan amounts to US$236 million representing the oil transit fees plus the transitional financial arrangement agreed on between the two countries. We believe that the above action is but a practical response to the UNSC appeal. The question that poses itself is why does the UNSC interfere in this dossier considering that there are other important issues such as the security file and Abyei? What is the significance of the timing? To answer the two questions we should link between the recent conference of African Finance Ministers and the conference organized by the IMF to deal with the foreign debts scheduled to be held next October. The continuation of oil flow is inevitable to both Sudan and South Sudan to overcome the financial crisis and to gain the sympathy of the international community in dealing with the foreign debts which reached US$42 billions.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 20:14:04 +0000
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