Former southern rebels to rejoin Sudan government

Former southern rebels to rejoin Sudan govern- Sudan's former southern rebels said on Tuesday they would order ministers to rejoin a national coalition government, ending one of the biggest political crises to hit the country since the end of a two-decade civil war.The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) said it would end its boycott of the Government of National Unity on Wednesday after leader Salva Kiir met President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and resolved a string of grievances.The SPLM pulled its ministers out of the coalition government in October, accusing Khartoum of stalling on a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa's longest civil war.The move sparked a bitter row between the sides and stirred fears of a return to conflict.But SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum told reporters that Kiir and Bashir had now resolved almost all the points of contention, including a timetable for the withdrawal of troops to either side of Sudan's north-south border.The SPLM and Khartoum were still at loggerheads over the demarcation of the central oil-rich Abyei region, he said. But both Bashir and Kiir had agreed to discuss the issue again in a week and were confident it could be resolved, he added."We have achieved a lot... We have resolved all the outstanding issues that caused the crisis, with the exception of Abyei," said Amum.Kiir is Sudan's first vice president as well as head of the SPLM.Abyei's status was left unresolved in the agreement signed between Khartoum and the SPLM in 2005. Khartoum eventually rejected the findings of an independent commission on the demarcation.Amum said the SPLM had agreed to provide all necessary funds for border demarcation and a national census."We have also agreed to institute a full transparent system in the management of the oil sector," he said. All political parties would also start on a programme of "national reconciliation" to heal wounds left by the rift.The sharing of oil revenues has been one of the most contentious issues since the peace deal. The census is supposed to pave the way for national elections in 2009 and a referendum on the possible secession of the south in 2011.Around 2 million people died during more than 20 years of north-south fighting, fuelled by the discovery of oil against a background of ethnic and religious differences.Oil is linked to conflict elsewhere in Sudan too.Rebels from western Darfur said on Tuesday they had seized a Chinese-run oil field and vowed more assaults on other installations. Sudanese media denied the report, saying a small rebel attack had been repelled.The Justice and Equality movement said it carried out the attack to force Chinese oil firms to leave. The insurgent group accuses Beijing of arming Khartoum and financing the government through oil revenues.