South Sudan's president on Saturday made a separatist call for citizens to vote for a split in a referendum, the closest he has come to calling publicly for the separation of the oil-producing region.

The south secured a vote on whether to break away from Sudan as part of a peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war with the north. But until now, southern president Salva Kiir has stuck to the official line of building support for "unity."

"When you reach your ballot boxes the choice is yours: you want to vote for unity so that you become a second class in your own country, that is your choice," he told a cathedral congregation in the south's capital Juba during a service to launch a campaign for elections due in 2010 and the referendum in 2011.

Both sides promised to build up a campaign to make the unity of Sudan attractive to voters when they signed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that settled the civil war.

However, the separatist call will add pressure to the relationship between Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP).

The south leaders had so far not gone as far as openly saying they want to split.

The bulk of Sudan's proven oil reserves are in the south, while refineries and Sudan's only port are in the north.

North Sudan is mostly Muslim while southerners are largely Christian and followers of traditional beliefs.



Agencies