Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Sudan and Southern Sudan on Thursday to step back from the brink of war and return to the negotiating table.

Ban called the Southern Sudan to immediately withdraw its forces from the oil-rich region Heglig, calling the invasion “an attack on Sudan’s sovereignty and a clearly illegal act.” He called on the government of Sudan to immediately stop the bombing and shelling of South Sudanese territory and withdraw its forces from disputed territories, including Abyei.

The secretary general said the two countries “must stop supporting proxy forces against each other.”

He spoke to reporters in New York on Thursday as the Arab League announced it would hold an emergency meeting on

the escalating violence between the two countries.

Field, south of New reported skirmishes and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has increased its threats of war to the south.

Al-Bashir said the recent violence has “rekindled the spirit of jihad” in Sudan.Southern Sudan said it had repulsed four attacks from Sudan during a 24 hour period after fighting on the border showed no signs of slowing.

“This is not the time for war,” the UN secretary general told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. “It is a time for leadership, commitment to the negotiation- the name of humanity, and in the interests of the peoples of the two c
are country and region. “

“The last thing that people of both countries need another war – a war that could claim countless lives, destroy hope and ruin the prospects for peace and stability and prosperity of all Sudanese people, “Ban said.

Acting on a request by Sudan, the Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo next week to discuss the violence, the Arab League Deputy Secretary-General Ahmed bin Helli said. League earlier called South Sudan to withdraw from the area Heglig that troops invaded the south and took over last week.

Despite threats from Sudan, a spokesman for the South African government South Sudan has been said that defending its territory and considers Sudan a “friendly nation.”

South Sudan army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said were three attacks on Wednesday and Thursday. He did not give a death toll.

Southern Sudan has broken with Sudan last year after a vote on self-determination for independence. The vote was secured by a mediation to end decades of civil war between the two sides. But the sides never completely agreed that their common border lay, and they did not reach agreement on how to share oil wealth being pumped from the border region.

Instead, both countries experienced a sharp increase in violence in recent weeks, particularly around the oil-producing town of Heglig. Both sides say their own Heglig.It lies in a region where the border has never been clearly defined.

Aguer said the troops repulsed an attack by southern Sudanese troops near Heglig on Wednesday and two attacks in northern Bahr el Ghazal. One was rejected in Western Bahr el Ghazal state Thursday morning, he said.

Al-Bashir, on Wednesday threatened to overthrow the government of Southern Sudan after accusing the South of trying to pick up the Khartoum-based government.
He continued his extremist rhetoric Thursday in an address to a “popular defense” of the brigade reaches the target area Heglig. The ceremony took place in al-Obeid in Northern Kordofan.

“Sudan will cut the hand that hurts,” said al-Bashir, an army officer career who fought against the army south Sudan People’s People’s Liberation Army, during the 1983-2005 civil war. Al-Bashir took power in a military coup in 1989.

Capture Heglig by southern Sudanese “rekindled the spirit of jihad and martyrdom among the Sudanese people,” he said in 2300 the brigade of men, according to the official News Agency of Sudan.

In Khartoum, the pro-Sudan Media Center said Wednesday night that fighting broke out between the two nations in the region of Al-Meram in South Kordofan, with the Northern troops chasing what he called “the remaining elements “of the SPLA. He said that the Northern troops chased the SPLA fighters who fled across the border in southern Sudan.

He said that the battle has left an unknown number of dead and wounded among the SPLA forces, but did not give specific figures.

Southern Sudan government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin told the Southern Sudan does not consider itself at war with Sudan, but he said the south is the defense of the territory it believes it has on the basis of borders defined in 1956 by British colonialists.

“So far we have not taken even an inch to Sudan,” Benjamin said. He added: “The Republic of South Sudan believes that the Republic of Sudan to be a neighbor and a friendly nation.”

Benjamin said that the forces would withdraw from South Heglig if the African Union guarantees a cessation of hostilities agreement on border demarcation, and the withdrawal of Sudanese forces near the border region of Abyei, with Ethiopian troops moving as peacekeepers.

Benjamin said that al-Bashir is the realization of “genocide” against the Sudanese people in Darfur, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile regions of Sudan. He said al-Bashir Wednesday words were a warning that he would do the same thing in Southern Sudan.

“Can you name a war waged by the Sudan fought with a foreign country? They have always used their artillery military to kill innocent people of Sudan and Southern Sudan,” said Benjamin.

The International Crisis Group said in a news analysis on Thursday that Sudan and Southern Sudan are “on the brink of total war from which neither would win.” He said a cease-fire is necessary, then solutions to unresolved issues post-referendum.

“Increasingly angry rhetoric, support for each other’s rebels, the command and control of the poor, and the tightrope, the escalation of conflict risk and contained in a limited scale confrontation,” said the group said. “The diplomatic pressure to end hostilities and to resume negotiations must be carried out by the two governments in the region and the United Nations Security Council and partners such as the United States, China and the key states of the Gulf. “

U.S. special envoy to Sudan and Southern Sudan Princeton Lyman called the situation “a serious crisis between Sudan and Southern Sudan” which “affects the peace and security”, but said it was not yet an all-out war and expressed the hope that it could be prevented.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-chief-urges-2-sudans-step-back-war-212436617.html