U.S. Would Welcome Ethiopian Peacekeepers in Abyei, Clinton Says

The U.S. would welcome Ethiopian peacekeepers in Sudan’s disputed region of Abyei, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, describing the situation in the area as “deeply troubling.”

President Umar al-Bashir’s Sudanese Armed Forces occupied Abyei on May 21, saying forces from Southern Sudan had attacked its soldiers there two days before. Fighting has since spread to the Southern Kordofan border state.

“I am going to wait to hear a report” from talks between Southern Sudan and the government in Khartoum, Clinton told reporters today at a press conference in Tanzania. “They went long into the night.”

The fighting along the border between Sudan and Southern Sudan has raised concern about a resumption of the two-decade civil war that ended with a 2005 peace agreement. Sudanese planes bombed a village in Southern Sudan’s Unity state for the second time in a week today, said a local commissioner. Southern Sudan is scheduled to become an independent state on July 9.

The bombing that hit Jaw village occurred between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. local time, Pariang County Commissioner Mabek Lang said by phone from Southern Sudan’s capital, Juba. The village, which holds a Southern Sudanese army base, is close to part of a border that is disputed with northern Sudan.

The peace talks being held in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, include Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir, Salva Kiir, the president of Southern Sudan, Thabo Mbeki, the head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel, and Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi.

To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Washington at fjackson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Digby Lidstone at dlidstone@bloomberg.net