South Sudan’s President, Salva Kiir, is reported to have rejected his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir’s, recent proposal, calling for the contested oil-rich Abyei region to be resolved directly between the relevant communities on a local level.

South Sudan’s co-chair of the Abyei Joint Supervisory Committee, Deng Mading Majak, relayed this discussion in a press statement yesterday, describing Bashir’s request that the resident Dinka Ngok community engage in a direct debate with the pastoralist Misseriya.

He claimed that this would lead to a satisfactory solution leaving the only role for the presidents as approving a solution reached on the ground.

However, Deng was quick to point out yesterday that Kiir rejected this strategy, stressing that the Abyei resolution process should not be excluded from regional and international platforms, as has been previously agreed in the Naivasha and Addis Ababa peace accords.

Deng conveyed what Kiir told him last week at the committee’s swearing in ceremony: that, “the Abyei issue is his personal case and he can’t alienate, or compromise on, it.”

The future of the contested border region of Abyei was supposed to be decided in a 2011 referendum, coinciding with South Sudan’s referendum on independence.  However, disputes over eligibility to vote and instability along the border region brought this process to a halt.