EU Considering Sudan, South Sudan Sanctions

The European Union could sanction the governments of Sudan and South Sudan if they continue to attack each other, France's Cooperation Minister Henri de Raincourt said Monday.

"If matters don't evolve favorably we could consider establishing sanctions against those who don't respect the conditions for resolving the crisis," he said during EU foreign ministers' talks in Luxembourg.

In a statement the 27 ministers urged Sudan and South Sudan "to stop immediately attacks on each other's territory."

"The use of force will not resolve any of the outstanding issues between the two countries," the statement added.

De Raincourt said the two countries must learn to co-exist "given more or less that one has oil on its territory but that it has to transit across the territory of the other."

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, speaking in the main oil region of Heglig, which the South occupied for 10 days, said Monday there will be no more talks with South Sudan.

"No negotiation with those people," Bashir said of the South Sudanese regime, which he earlier described as an "insect" that must be eliminated.

"Our talks with them were with guns and bullets," he told soldiers.

Despite the end of the occupation, the governor of South Sudan's Unity State, Taban Deng, said Sudanese bombs fell on a key bridge and a market, killing at least two children in the state capital Bentiu on Monday.

The bombs prompted heavy bursts of gunfire from Southern soldiers hoping to shoot down Khartoum's warplanes, said an Agence France Presse correspondent who was 50 meters (yards) from where the ordnance hit.