Relations between Sudan and South Sudan have soured once more after the former cancelled nine security pacts with its breakaway neighbour to bring a premature end to their brief state of peace.
The two countries had agreed last September to nine pacts aimed at smoothing relations after months of skirmishes, to allow people, goods and oil to flow across the disputed border.
Oil had been cut off last year before the agreement, with South Sudan accusing its neighbour of theft, but after claims Juba was backing insurgents in the north, hostilities have resumed.
Now Sudan president Omar al-Bashir has ordered the pipeline carrying South Sudanese crude oil through its territory to be shut.
“We will stop all nine agreements, not only oil,” Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman warned.
However, South Sudan’s government said it would continue to pipe oil.
“We have not received any official communication from the government of Sudan so we are still producing,” said the country’s oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau.
Sudanese officials said the two export pipelines would be shut within two months unless South Sudan gave up support for insurgents, but would allow the export of oil already on its soil. China’s state-owned CNPC said it had already sold 1.2million barrels of SOuth Sudanese oil.