Oil exports from South Sudan will be able to resume via the Sudanese port of Bashayer, after an agreement with the protesters who were blocking it, Khartoum announced Sunday evening.
The agreement came hours after Khartoum sent a ministerial delegation to the protesters who were blocking the port and two pipelines.
“The meeting between the government delegation led by General Kabashi, a member of the Sovereignty Council, and a delegation from the Beja Council resulted in an agreement to allow the passage of South Sudanese oil exports through the port of Bashayer,” the Khartoum Sovereignty Council, a military-civilian body overseeing the transition to civilian government, said in a statement.
Bashayer is the main terminal, near Port Sudan, from which oil from landlocked South Sudan is shipped to world markets.
In this poor region, where most of the country’s trade passes through, the protesters denounced a peace agreement with the rebels, which they said did not give them sufficient representation in local government.
A sign that the crisis was being taken very seriously was the fact that the ministerial delegation included a high-ranking member of the Sovereignty Council, as well as the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Energy and Transport.