Sudan strongly denied on Sunday accusations that it is using oil revenues to finance its war effort against rebels across the south and east of the country.
"We do not use the petroleum proceeds in the civil war.... We are, rather, directing those revenues towards development and services," first Vice-President Ali Osman Taha told a press conference in Khartoum.
Sudan, which has been engulfed in a civil war since 1983, started exporting oil in August 1999 through a pipeline linking oilfields in the south to the Red Sea with a capacity of around 200,000 barrels per day.
Taha said the accusations from US institutions he did not name were aimed at depriving Sudan of the source of hard currency, adding that the real destination of the oil revenues could be verified by anyone.
"The figures are on hand to verify and we have partners that may be asked," he said.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse 2001.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
