Sudan threatens to block southern oil pipeline

Khartoum: Sudan's president threatened on Wednesday to block pipelines in the south if the government there doesn't pay to transit oil or share it with Khartoum.

Even so, Sudan's official news agency quoted President Omar al-Bashir as saying his country still wants good relations with the south.

Southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly in January to secede from Sudan and become an independent country in July. That vote was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of war.

The two governments are now negotiating how oil wealth will be shared between the north and the south.

While the south is rich in oil, all pipelines run through the north, and the south does not have refineries of its own.