Pretoria - With less than three weeks before the referendum on the status of Southern Sudan is held, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir reiterated his commitment to sticking to the schedule and ensuring that the process is free, credible and transparent.
"We have agreed on the conduction of South Sudan referendum according to the peace agreement which we signed in January 2005," said al-Bashir on Monday.
"We have kept on stressing the importance that the referendum must be free, fair, and credible and away from pressures that seek to prevent the Southern Sudanese citizens from expressing their real will in unity or separation," he added.
Al-Bashir was speaking after holding talks with his Mauritanian counterpart, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, in Khartoum.
Southerners are set to vote in a referendum on January 9 on whether to remain united with the north or break away and form their own country.
The vote is a key plank of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south that put an end to more than two decades of civil war. Observers are predicting that the southerners will opt for independence.
The voting will run until 15 January, with counting to begin immediately after. Preliminary results are expected to be released before referendum authorities confirm their accuracy and then issue final results.
The international community has been calling for a peaceful and on time process in the country which has been beset by conflict.
On Sunday, US President Barack Obama even sent letters to regional leaders in Africa urging them to support a peaceful, independent referendum.
Neighbouring countries are also pushing for a peaceful process, with a meeting between them scheduled for Tuesday in Khartoum.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir, as well as Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir, are expected to meet today to resolve "tensions and controversies" surrounding the full implementation of the CPA.
Both Egypt and Libya, which border Sudan, would want to prevent any mass migration should war break out as a result of independence.
The UN Refugee Agency estimates that more than a million people could be displaced.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN panel tasked with monitoring the voting in Sudan, Benjamin Mkapa, urged all parties to ensure the credibility of the process.
Mkapa stressed during a meeting in Juba with Southern Sudanese Vice President, Riek Machar and other government officials that the way in which the referendum results are released and communicated to the public will be critical to determining the overall credibility of the referendum process.
Mkapa, the former President of Tanzania and chair of the three-member panel, urged all parties involved in the referendum to play their part to ensure that the results are released responsibly and fairly.
He also called on the governments in Khartoum and Juba to make sure that referendum staff and security personnel are paid so that they can carry out their work during the polling phase.
