An international arbitration panel on Wednesday awarded the Sudanese government control over almost all major oil reserves in a disputed region of Sudan that erupted into violence last year between state forces and former southern rebels.
The arbitration was a crucial test for a 2005 agreement that ended 20 years of warfare between the government and southern Sudanese insurgents. Both sides said they accepted the decision and southern officials called it a step toward permanent peace.
"This decision clearly demonstrates that, even on the most difficult and sensitive of disputes, the parties can find a peaceful solution if they work together in good faith," said Ashraf Qazi, head of the U.N. Mission in Sudan.
The Abyei region, with oil reserves and grazing lands used by nomadic herders from both the north and south, has suffered flare-ups of violence since the peace deal.
The northern government and semiautonomous south asked the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration to set the region's permanent borders after a May 2008 battle in which 22 northern soldiers were killed, most of the town of Abyei was burned to the ground and 50,000 residents were forced to flee.
The five-member panel affirmed, in a four-one decision, the northern boundary as set by a 2005 commission but drew new lines in the east and west that placed the Heglig oil fields and the Nile oil pipeline under the control of the Khartoum government.
In Khartoum, the government welcomed the decision, and in The Hague, northern delegation chief Dirdeiry Mohamed Ahmed called it a victory.
"We welcome the fact that the oil fields are now excluded from the Abyei area, particularly the Heglig oil field," he said.
Riek Machar Teny, deputy chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, a southern group, called the ruling balanced.
"I think this is going to consolidate peace in Sudan. It is a victory for the Sudanese people and a victory for peace," he said.
Fouad Hikmat of the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, Kenya, said gaining most of Abyei had symbolic importance for the southerners, even though the richest oil reserves fell outside their area.
"Oil is being exhausted and it will not last that long," he said.
The group said in 2007 that Abyei had reserves of 395 million barrels and just over half of the reserves were in Heglig.
In a dissenting opinion, Jordanian judge Awn Al-Khasawneh chastened his tribunal colleagues for trying too hard to reach a compromise, putting the deal on legally shaky ground. After a scathing indictment of their methods, he said the award should be left "to the sand on which it has been built."
He also said he was concerned the decision could lead to future conflict because it deprived an important tribe, the Misseriya, of critical water sources.
The 2005 peace deal created a unity government and gave the south a semiautonomous status, but left Abyei's borders and future status unresolved. It called for southern Sudan to hold a referendum in 2011 on whether to secede from the north or remain united.
Abyei residents will hold a separate referendum in 2011 to decide whether to join the north or south.
Sir Derek Plumbly, who leads a commission ensuring that the 2005 peace deal is enforced, called the ruling "a historic moment" that closed the biggest gap in implementing the peace agreement.
The Heglig field was first developed in 1996 and is operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company. Sudan has a majority stake, with shares owned by companies from China, Malaysia and India.
The tribunal's leader, French law professor Pierre-Marie Dupuy, said the rights of nomadic tribes that live in the region remain protected, regardless of where the boundary falls.
"Boundaries are not barriers," he said.
The five-member arbitration panel was comprised of two members appointed by each side, while Dupuy was chosen by the Hague-based arbitration court.
"Abyei can once again be a bridge between the north and the south and a true anchor for peace throughout Sudan," said Teny, a southerner.
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Associated Press Writers Mohamed Osman in Khartoum, Sudan, and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.
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