Leaders take pledge to seek peace in their troubled nations JUBA: Sudan’s new Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok met with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Thursday on his first official visit since becoming premier, following the overthrow of Omar Al-Bashir. War is “no longer an option” for Sudan and South Sudan, their leaders agreed during talks which focused on border disputes and the oil trade, but also resolving protracted conflicts in both nations. Hamdok, heading an 18-member transitional government following the overthrow of Bashir, is set to meet South Sudan President Salva Kiir as well as Sudanese opposition leaders on his two-day visit. “I am very delighted to be here in my second home, Juba. We are looking for a very strategic, very distinguished relationship between our two nations, and the sky is the limit for this relationship,” Hamdok said upon his arrival. “We hope to have a very prosperous relationship that will address issues of trade, the border issue, oil, free movement of our people between the two countries and all these agendas.” South Sudan split from the north in 2011 after decades of bloody war with Khartoum, famously becoming the world’s youngest nation. But just two years later, it plunged into its own internal conflict, with catastrophic consequences. While tensions remain high between south and north over ongoing border disputes and the transfer of oil to the north, the two nations have increasingly moved to normalize ties in recent years. Analysts say the two have been pushed together by the grinding war in South Sudan, which has defied several peace attempts, and an economic crisis in Sudan, which was hard-hit by the collapse of the south’s oil industry. One of Bashir’s last moves before his ouster was to broker a peace deal between President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar — at a time when much of the world had wearied of trying to solve the crisis. However the 2018 peace deal has stalled as Sudan has battled its own political crisis in recent months. The two men met this week in Juba for the first time in five months.