BREAKING NEWS

Sudan's Bashir rejects mediation in talks with South

KHARTOUM - Sudan wants to end all conflict with newly-independent South Sudan through dialogue but without any foreign mediation, President Omar Hassan Bashir said on Saturday ahead of a visit by his southern counterpart.
South Sudan became independent on July 9 after a referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal with Khartoum that ended decades of civil war that killed two million people.
Both countries have failed to sort out a long list of disputes such as sharing oil revenues, ending violence in the joint border area or finding a compromise for the Abyei region which both north and South claim.
Diplomats hope for progress when Southern president Salva Kiir visits Khartoum in the next few days in his first trip since Juba's independence, according to local newspaper reports.