Hillary Welcomes Oil Agreement between Sudan/South Sudan

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued a statement that says in part:

I welcome the agreement on oil reached between the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan. This agreement reflects leadership and a new spirit of compromise on both sides.

We praise the courage of the Republic of South Sudan's leadership in taking this decision. As I said in Juba yesterday, the interests of their people were at stake. The oil impasse has lasted more than six months. Now was the time to bring this impasse to a close, for the good of the people of South Sudan and their aspirations for a better future in the face of ongoing challenges. South Sudan's leaders have risen to the occasion.

The mostly black African tribes of South Sudan and the mainly Arab north battled two civil wars over more than five decades, and some 2 million died in the latest war, from 1983-2005. It ended with the 2005 peace pact that led to last year's independence declaration for South Sudan.

Though the breakup was peaceful, hostilities flared earlier this year.

South Sudan inherited about three-quarters of the region's oil, but shut down its oil industry in January after accusing Sudan of stealing oil that the South must pump through Sudan's pipelines.

Although Hillary is likely happy to be in the middle of another brokered oil deal, the US driven peace between Sudan and South Sudan is more about surrounding nearby Iran. Economist magazine explained earlier this year:

The governments of Sudan and South Sudan have been enlisting support from Iran and Israel: not a good omen for peace between north and south. In early May the UN Security Council threatened both Sudans with sanctions unless they stopped fighting and began to discuss how to share oil revenues and demarcate their disputed border. But within weeks a Sudanese delegation went to Iran, where the government promised to strengthen economic ties, oil exploration included. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that his country and Sudan, both facing international sanctions, were victims of “arrogant powers and enemies of mankind”.

Since an Islamist-backed military coup brought Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, to power in 1989, Shia-run Iran has seen Sunni-dominated Sudan as a useful ally in north-east Africa, and has used Sudan's east side as a corridor for weapons to be smuggled into Egypt and on to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group in the Gaza Strip. Israel bombed Iranian convoys on that route in 2009.

Some generals in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, now appear to want to co-operate even more closely with Iran, aiming at South Sudan. An Iranian surveillance drone crashed in Sudanese territory in March after coming under fire from South Sudanese-backed rebels.