UN given access to resolve Sudan oil flashpoint

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, April 7 (Reuters) - The United Nations has been given 14 days of unhindered access to Sudan's oil-rich Abyei region to help stem escalating tensions which threaten to undermine a landmark 2005 north-south peace deal.

Since last week both the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the dominant northern National Congress Party (NCP) have accused each other of moving troops into Abyei town, the central Sudanese state's capital.

The north-south U.N. peacekeeping mission's Indian commander Jasbir Lidder Singh said Abyei was tense but the United Nations had been unable to verify the presence of unauthorised troops because both sides restricted U.N. movement outside Abyei town.

"Because of the tensions that were there (both sides) lifted their restrictions for 14 days," Singh told reporters in Khartoum on Monday, adding in the next two weeks they hoped to have a clearer picture.

Analysts call Abyei the "Kashmir" of Sudan. Three years after the peace deal Abyei still has no state authority governing it, no border demarcation, and it is coveted by both the north and the south.

Abyei will vote at the same time as the south in 2011 on whether to secede from the north under the terms of the 2005 peace deal.

"It's a political issue which has to be resolved politically," Singh said. "None of these political claims should manifest in any military muscle flexing on the ground."

"It requires a lot of ... flexibility from both parties."