Sudan agrees to halt hostilities with South Sudan (2)

Citizenship issue with border demarcation and oil revenue division are core issues between the two sides since South Sudan's independence from a united Sudan in July last year.

A day earlier, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted unanimously a resolution demanding that Sudan and South Sudan shall "immediately cease all hostilities, including aerial bombardments," and "unconditionally withdraw all of their armed forces" back into their own territory.

The two countries were demanded to formally present their commitments to the chairman of the African Union Commission and the president of the Security Council within 48 hours of the adoption of the resolution.

The African Union (AU), in a decision on April 24, asked the 15-nation Security Council to endorse its demands that Sudan and South Sudan halt hostilities in 48 hours, start talks within two weeks and complete a peace accord in three months.

After the UNSC meeting, Chinese UN Ambassador Li Baodong said China has always maintained that African issues should be settled by Africa in African ways, and hopes for the international community to take an "objective, impartial and balanced" stand in handing the issue concerning Sudan and South Sudan.

Similarly, Russia resisted a Western push for the UNSC to threaten Sudan and South Sudan with sanctions if the two countries fail to comply with demands to halt their escalating conflict.

Tensions flared up between the two neighbors on April 10 when South Sudan took the Heglig oilfield on the border by force, which caused worldwide condemnation.

The Sudanese army, however, on April 20 managed to take back Heglig, which includes Sudan's biggest oil fields, after confrontations with South Sudan's army.