Bashir will also exchange views on the latest issues affecting countries in the region, while seeking support to enable Khartoum to face economic challenges.
Inflation has gone up now that South Sudan controls most of the split country’s oil reserves, Sudanese Ambassador Abdel Hafiz Ibrahim said on Thursday.
“Then, there is a mammoth task before my embassy to identify workers from South Sudan in Saudi Arabia and to correct their status in passports and residence permits,” he added. “We don’t want them to be stranded once we start refusing the renewal of their passports locally,” said the diplomat.
He said the embassy had set up a panel to solve the problems emanating from the division. “We will not renew the passports of the Kingdom-based workers from South Sudan, but the passports will be replaced and residence status will be corrected in cooperation with the Saudi and South Sudanese governments,” he added.
About half a million Sudanese work in the Kingdom, said the diplomat. He, however, refused to estimate the number of workers from South Sudan.
President Bashir was in Doha on Thursday where a peace agreement was signed between the Justice and Liberation Movement (LJM) and the Sudanese government, aiming to bring peace to the troubled region of Darfur.
Ibrahim said the Kingdom already recognized the new state. Many Arab states, including the UAE, came forward to recognize South Sudan despite the fact that Arab countries for the most part were uncomfortable with the idea of splitting a fellow Arab state.
The diplomat said the focus of talks with King Abdullah will be on preparing Khartoum to face new challenges in the aftermath of Sudan’s division. President Bashir, he said, will invite Saudi businessmen to invest in Sudan, a close ally of the Kingdom.
Asked about the impact on the Sudanese economy following the division, he said oilfields in the south had kept the region’s economy alive.
