Ambassador Princeton Lyman, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, departs Washington today en route to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he will support on-going talks between the parties to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement to reach a cessation of hostilities in Southern Kordofan and to resolve matters pertaining to the future relationship between Sudan and South Sudan.

In Addis Ababa, the Special Envoy will join African Union High-Level Implementation Panel Chairman Thabo Mbeki in his efforts to encourage the parties to reach agreements on resource sharing, disputed border areas, citizenship, and other matters to allow the peaceful transition to independence for South Sudan.

The Special Envoy will then travel to Khartoum for meetings with senior Sudanese officials, and to Juba to attend South Sudan’s independence ceremony on July 9.

The United States has been deeply engaged in Sudan, having helped to broker the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended decades of civil war between the country’s north and south. U.S. diplomatic and development efforts supported the conduct of a peaceful, on-time referendum on independence for Southern Sudan in January 2011. In the years ahead, the United States will remain a steadfast partner of the Sudanese people. The United States supports international efforts to promote full and timely implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, to reach a definitive end to the conflict in Darfur, and to ensure that Sudan does not provide a safe haven for international terrorists.

Learn more about the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan: http://www.state.gov/s/sudan

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