The long-awaited presidential summit

Presidents Al-Bashir and kiir

The Spotlight of today will focus on two inter-related issues pertaining to relations between Sudan and South Sudan. The first of these is the long-awaited presidential summit, and the other one is the resumption of flights between the capitals of the two countries.

Today’s news reported that President Omer Al-Bashir has accepted invitations to attend a summit meeting with his South Sudanese counterpart, President Salva Kiir, on Sept 23, “next Sunday”.

The invitations came from the Chairman of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan, Thabo Mbeki, and the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Haile-Mariam, whose country's capital, Addis Ababa, will host the meeting.

The messages were conveyed to President Al-Bashir by the visiting Ethiopian envoy, Nessan Johannes, who said in a press statement that the messages he delivered to the president dealt with the invitations to President Al-Bashir to participate in the summit, pointing out that the message from the Ethiopian Prime Minister affirmed his commitment to boosting efforts for peace between Sudan and South Sudan.

The other important issue is the resumption of flights between Khartoum and Juba which have been suspended for nearly five months due to the dispute over the status of South Sudanese living in the north last April.

The two issues are seen by observers and analysts as a very important developments towards reaching a final deal to resolving the conflicts between the two sides, whereas the presidential summit will wrap up two weeks of negotiations that meant to end hostilities between the two neighbours. The resumption of air transport, as well, is considered as start of people to people relations and building of social ties and bilateral cooperation for the best interests of citizens of both countries as it will allow exchange of goods and services as well as movement of the people in both countries.

We hope that the leadership of the two countries will take positive steps at their meeting next week, toward a final deal that would allow the resumption of oil exports which is very vital to the economies of both countries.