U.N. teams head to Sudan

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Members of the U.N. Security Council are headed to Sudan ahead of a January referendum for self-determination for South Sudan, an official said.

Ruhakana Rugunda, the Ugandan envoy to the United Nations, said the terms of the visit scheduled for this week "are being finalized," the U.N. news agency reports.

The Security Council said its team would head to Juba in the south, followed by a tour of Darfur and then on to Khartoum, the nation's capital.

U.S. President George W. Bush in 2005 brokered a Sudanese agreement that led in part to the end of years of civil conflict. The measure gave South Sudan a five-year period of autonomy followed by the January referendum for self-determination.

Washington and the United Nations have expressed concern that Sudanese authorities were well behind schedule in their preparations for the vote.

Rosalind Marsden, the special envoy to Sudan for the European Union, told the EU's Foreign Affairs Committee that the months leading up to the referendum were "critical" for the country.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha promised delegates at the U.N. General Assembly that his "brothers in the south of Sudan" could vote without any undue pressure from the government in Khartoum.