He told AFP that his group also has the option of holding its own unilateral referendum if the rival Ngok Dinka go ahead with plans for a ballot.
"We are waiting for the results of President Bashir's visit to Juba today," Nimir said as Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
arrived in the South Sudanese capital for talks with his counterpart Salva Kiir.
"If he comes back with a deal for the Dinka to stop the referendum process, which they've started, that will be good," he said.
The Ngok Dinka, closely connected to South Sudan, are permanent residents of oil-producing Abyei.
At a 'People's General Conference' held last Friday, they declared their intention to hold a referendum to resolve the status of Abyei but set no date.
Abyei was meant to vote whether it lies in Sudan or South Sudan in January 2011 -- the same day as Juba voted overwhelmingly to split from the north -- as part of the 2005 peace deal which ended Sudan's two-decades long civil war.
But that vote never happened and Sudanese troops stormed the enclave and occupied it until May 2012. Since then, the impoverished area has been in political limbo.
The United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
, which is the only authority in the area, has previously warned that any unilateral move would risk inflaming tensions in war-ravaged Abyei.
On Monday, the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
reiterated that its own proposal for a referendum this month, to determine whether Abyei belongs with Sudan or South Sudan, is "a fair, equitable and workable solution."
That ballot has been stalled over disagreement about voter eligibility.
After a summit in September, diplomats said Kiir and Bashir seemed to have reached a deal to avoid an immediate official ballot on Abyei.