NAIVASHA, Kenya, January 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Khartoum and the main rebels group Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) signed an accord on Wednesday, January 7, on sharing the oil-rich country's wealth, a key component of efforts to end 20 years of civil war.

The accord, signed in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, provides for an approximate 50-50 split of revenue from the country's roughly 300,000 daily barrels of oil and other income between the government and an envisaged autonomous administration in the south to be run by the SPLM, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The agreement was reached at talks in Naivasha on Monday, January 5, and paved the way for ending a grinding civil war that killed about two million people and uprooted four million others.

The war also pitted the government in the predominantly Muslim north against rebels in the south, which is mainly animist or Christian. Disputes over oil, ethnicity and ideology have complicated the conflict.

The accord, due to come into effect once a comprehensive peace accord is signed, leaves two other topics to be settled before a final peace can be signed -- sharing power and the status of three disputed areas: Abyei, southern Blue Nile State and the Nuba Mountains.

Africa's largest country earns an estimated $2 billion a year from its growing oil production of more than 250,000 barrels per day (bpd), unprecedented riches for an impoverished country of 30 million that only began petroleum exports in the late 1990s, Reuters news agency reported.

Experts say its output is expected to rise to 450,000 in 2005 and has the potential to hit 800,000 by 2010, provided the country can continue to attract investment from foreign energy companies, which at present are mostly Chinese and Indian.

Wednesday's deal was signed by chief negotiators from both sides, Idris Mohammed Abdelgadir for the Sudanese government and Nhial Deng Nhial for the SPLM, an AFP journalist at the ceremony reported.

The signing was witnessed by Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) John Garang as well as Kenyan foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka.

"This agreement is a major achievement that takes us close to a fair and just agreement in our country," Garang said at the ceremony. "The Sudan peace process is truly irreversible. We have surmounted another hill," he added.

"This is a tremendous development," David Mozersky of the International Crisis Group think-tank told AFP shortly before the signing.

"But the toughest issue [of the peace process] remains on the table," he said, referring to the future status of the three disputed areas in central Sudan.

"The international community needs to maintain its high level of involvement until a comprehensive peace deal is signed," he urged.

Since 1983, the government in Khartoum and the rebels have been fighting a war that has become increasingly driven by a stake in Sudan's natural resources, namely oil.

Under an agreement signed in Kenya in July 2002, the south will enjoy autonomy from Khartoum for six years, following which a referendum will be held to determine whether the south will secede or remain part of Sudan.