7 February 2011, Khartoum — Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir officially accepted the final results of Southern Sudan Referendum paving the way for the proclamation of an independent state in the region.

President Al-Bashir on Monday issued a Republican Decree accepting final result of the referendum which supports the separation of the South, after the official promulgation of the results in Khartoum on Monday.

"We declare our acceptance of the southern Sudan people's choice and we pledge to work for resolving the outstanding issues and build constructive relations between north and south Sudan," said a decree read by the Minister of Presidency Affairs Bakri Hassan Salih.

The final result was formally submitted on Monday to Sudan President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir by the chairperson of Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC), Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, who said that a total of 98.83 percent of voters opted for independence in the weeklong referendum whose commission organized last month.

Khalil also said that no legal challenges had been lodged against the result and that the referendum was conducted in "a fair and transparent" manner.

Upon receipt of the results at the Presidential Palace in Khartoum, President Al-Bashir said he welcomes the choice of south Sudan people.

"We are with the choice of the southern citizen and sustaining peace in the north and the south" Al-Bashir said.

The nation-in-waiting will officially come to being in July 2011 when the 2005's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended more than two decades of north-south civil war and granted the referendum, expires.

North and South Sudan are engaged in intermittent talks to thrash out a set of post-referendum issues; including sharing of oil revenues, demarcation of borders and the status of the hotly contested border region of Abyei.

Later on in the afternoon, the council of ministers held a session in Khartoum attended by President Al-Bashir and Sudan's First Vice-President and President of Southern Sudan Government Salva Kiir Mayadrit to announce the results.

Al-Bashir delivered a speech in which he reiterated welcoming of the result and pledged to resolve post-referendum arrangements before the end of the CPA timeline.

"We promised to give the people of the south the right to self-determination...now that they have chosen independence, we will keep our promise," he said.

"As to post-referendum [arrangements]" Al-Bashir added "we are resolved to reach an agreement on them before the end of the transitional period."