South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has ordered his country's army to pull out of a buffer zone area on the border with Sudan as agreed at African Union-brokered talks, South Sudan's army spokesman said on Monday.

The two former civil war rivals agreed at the talks on Friday to order the withdrawal within a week to ease tensions that have plagued them since South Sudan seceded in July 2011.

After teetering on the brink of full-scale conflict in April during the worst border clashes since their split, the two countries had agreed in September to set up the buffer zone. However, they did not implement it.

The agreement, if adhered to, would be a major step toward resuming oil exports from landlocked South Sudan through pipelines in Sudan, which Juba shut off during a row over fees more than a year ago.

 

 

Both countries depended heavily on oil for revenue and the foreign currency they use to import food and fuel for their conflict-weary and impoverished populations.

"The Sudan People's Liberation Army has received instructions from the commander in chief of the SPLA (army), President Salva Kiir, to effect the withdrawal from the proposed safe demilitarized buffer zone," South Sudan armed forces spokesman Philip Aguer said.

The withdrawal would take about two weeks, he said.

Negotiations over unresolved issues after the partition of the two countries, including border disputes, oil and debt have been marred by mutual distrust from a decades-long north-south civil war when some 2 million people were killed.