Beshir's remarks to Al-Sahafa daily appeared as government and Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) negotiators in Kenya fine-tuned a deal they now hope to sign on Tuesday, SPLA and Kenyan officials said.

Even though the details were still apparently being worked out, Beshir said the deal cleared the way for settling outstanding issues and signing a final peace agreement.

"This accord will facilitate reaching agreements on the future of the three regions and on power-sharing" between Sudan's government and John Garang's SPLA, Beshir told the daily.

The three disputed regions are Abyei, Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile state, which lie north of the administrative boundaries left over by Britain on independence in 1956.

The president expected the two sides to reach "positive results very soon if the negotiations continue in the same spirit."

In his remarks to Al-Sahafa, Beshir said the two sides agreed to first give two percent of oil proceeds to the state in which it was produced.

He told the Khartoum daily that the remainder of the oil proceeds would be shared 50 percent each by the central government in Khartoum and the government in the south, which would be set up under a six-year period of self-rule.

A source close to the SPLA said on condition he not be named that the Sudanese government had until now refused to grant the south more than 30 percent of the revenue. He could not immediately confirm the 50-50 split.

The main oil-producing state in the south is Unity State, but some oil is also produced in Upper Nile State.

Beshir was quoted as saying that the formula would be applied to any other southern states where oil is produced in the future.

Sudan, which became an oil exporter in August 1999, currently produces around 300,000 barrels of oil a day which accounts for 43 percent of government revenue, according to the energy and mines ministry.

In Kenya, SPLA spokesman Yasser Arman and Kenyan mediators told AFP that the signing of a deal on sharing oil and other wealth had been postponed to allow both sides to fine-tune the text.

The deal, which mainly concerns oil revenue, is one of the key points of the current -- and supposedly final -- round of peace talks.

"The joint committee is still meeting to draft the final deal on wealth-sharing," Arman told AFP at the talks, being held on the shores of Kenya's Lake Naivasha.

Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka traveled to Naivasha in hopes of witnessing the signing on Sunday of an agreement on wealth-sharing he said was clinched on Friday.

But he said "now they are working on a final protocol which is very deep" and "hopefully" the deal will be signed on Tuesday.

The delegations at the talks are being led by Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA leader John Garang, who have been meeting face-to-face since December 7.

Taha and Garang committed themselves to reaching a final peace deal before the end of the year when US Secretary of State Colin Powell met them both in Naivasha in October.

This deadline now looks unlikely to be met, sources said.

Sudan's civil war erupted again in 1983 after the collapse of a 1972 peace accord under which the south, where most people observe traditional religions or Christianity, rose up to end their domination by successive Islamic governments in Khartoum.

The conflict, which has killed at least 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million, has been increasingly driven by Sudan's natural resources.

WAR.WIRE