* Commission still confident of meeting Jan 9 deadline
* Budget clears key hurdle in delayed preparations
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Sudanese authorities on Tuesday announced a three week delay in registering voters for a referendum on southern independence, raising tensions just over 100 days before the vote is scheduled to take place.
People from the oil-producing south were promised a plebiscite on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war.
But preparations have fallen far behind -- the commission to organise the vote was only appointed in late June and registration forms are not due back from South African printers until late October.
Analysts have warned there is a risk of a return to conflict if southerners, who are widely expected to vote for independence, feel Khartoum is trying to delay or disrupt the vote to keep control of the region's oil.
Commission chairman Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil told Reuters on Tuesday he still hoped to make the Jan. 9 deadline, but registration of voters might now start three weeks later than planned in November to allow staff to deliver forms to 3,600 registration centres.
"We are now expecting the forms to arrive in the registration centres by November 15. By then the staff will be trained," said Khalil.
Referring to the date the vote is scheduled to begin on, Commission member Lual Chany added: "If people work day and night, it will still be possible to meet the Jan. 9, 2011 deadline."
The announcement came as the commission cleared one hurdle in the preparations by approving a $370 million budget for the referendum.
Khalil said Sudan's finance ministry had confirmed it would pay its share -- international donors will foot half the cost and Sudan's government, together with the semi-autonomous government in the south, the other half, he said.
The U.S. Carter Centre said on Tuesday it had sent out its first 16 observers across Sudan to start monitoring preparations for the vote.
The commission still needed to take several important steps, the Carter Centre said in a statement, including the distribution of funds, training of staff and publication of a detailed calendar.
Both northern and southern leaders last week assured Washington and the United Nations that the vote would take place peacefully and on time.
But within days the former civil war foes ramped up their rhetoric. Analysts say trust between the two sides has hit a post-peace low.
Ministers from the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP), led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, have threatened to reject the vote unless the south meets a list of conditions, and suggested southerners living in the north could be stripped of their citizenship and right to do business.
The spokesman for the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on Monday countered by accusing the north of building up 70,000 troops in contested areas close to their ill-defined border and plotting an attack.
(Editing by Noah Barkin)
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