* North and south should promise not to expel minorities-HRW
* Sudan's Bashir wants "free" vote, without intimidation
* Voter registration not before third week of October
KHARTOUM, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Sudanese minorities fear they could face expulsion and harassment if southerners vote for independence in an upcoming referendum, campaign group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
In just over 100 days, people from the oil-producing south will decide whether to stay in Sudan or secede, in a vote promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north south civil war.
A vote for independence -- widely expected by analysts -- would leave a question mark hanging over the citizenship of hundreds of thousands of southerners living in Khartoum and other northern cities, and northerners living in the south.
"Both southerners in the north and northerners living in southern Sudan told Human Rights Watch that they feared retaliation, even expulsion, if secession were approved," read a statement from the campaign group.
"The two parties to the peace agreement -- the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- should state publicly that they will not expel each other's minorities in the event of secession," it added.
The vote, scheduled for Jan. 9, 2011, is highly sensitive and many fear Sudan has not left itself enough time to organise the plebiscite.
Southern leaders have repeatedly accused Khartoum of trying to disrupt the vote, to keep control of the south's oil. In turn NCP officials have accused the SPLM of pushing a separatist agenda and quashing unionist voices in the south.
Sudanese president and NCP leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Wednesday gave a speech in Khartoum saying he wanted a "free, fair and transparent" referendum, adding he hoped southerners could make their choice "without any dictation, pressure and intimidation".
Washington this month offered economic and diplomatic incentives to Khartoum, on condition that it allowed the vote to take place, implemented the 2005 peace deal and resolved outstanding issues in the western region of Darfur.
U.S. President Barack Obama is among those scheduled to attend a special summit on Sudan on Friday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting.
Northern and southern leaders have been meeting for weeks to decide how they will share oil revenues and national debts after the vote, together with other issues, including the nationality of southerners in the north and vice versa.
No concrete decisions have been announced and it remains unclear how an independence vote would affect citizenship and property rights.
Organisers will not be able to register voters until the third week of October -- the expected arrival date of registration forms from the printers -- the chairman of Sudan's referendum commission Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil told Reuters on Wednesday. He had earlier said he expected registration to start mid October.
The commission, which was only appointed in late June, was hoping to get the final approval for its budget next week, he added. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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