Sudan and South Sudan prepared Tuesday for their first direct talks since deadly border fighting last month took them back to the brink of war, even as the South accused its arch-foe of fresh air raids. “Today as we speak they bombed us,” South Sudan’s top negotiator Pagan Amum told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, where teams from both sides have flown to restart African Union-led talks, expected to open late Tuesday. Amum said Sudanese war planes bombed border areas in three Southern states — Unity, Western and Northern Bahr el Ghazal — in the fourth day of reported attacks that Khartoum has dismissed as lies and were not immediately possible to verify independently. However, Amum said the South would still take part in the talks, which were stalled by heavy clashes last month, the worst fighting since the South won independence last July. “We are attending no matter what,” he said. The UN Security Council earlier this month ordered both sides to cease fighting and return to talks or face possible sanctions. Khartoum has in turn accused the South of alleged cross-border incursions, which it said broke the UN order to halt hostilities. Sources close to the talks said Khartoum’s delegation arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Tuesday morning. Khartoum, in an apparent peace gesture, has promised to end a year-long occupation of the contested Abyei region, a Lebanon-sized area whose ownership is a key issue for Juba and Khartoum. Troops were due to pull out on Tuesday. Sudanese troops stormed the region in May 2011, forcing some 110,000 people to flee southwards, where the majority remains in impoverished camps.
