* First acknowledgement from north elite of likely split
* Nafie says southern secession now "expected"
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Dec 16 (Reuters) - An aide to Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s president said on Thursday efforts to keep the country united had failed, in the first public acknowledgement from the ruling northern elite that the south would likely secede after a referendum.
Presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, seen as a hardline supporter of unity, said it was now "expected" that people from the oil-producing south would choose to declare independence in the Jan. 9 vote, the state Suna news agency reported.
The announcement from Nafie, one of the most powerful men in Sudan, could mark a change in direction in the north. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir previously said he would campaign up to the last moment to keep north and south united and members of his party have threatened not to recognise the result of the vote, citing irregularities.
The south is now just 24 days away from the scheduled start of voting in the plebiscite it secured in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of war with the north.
Analysts have long predicted embittered southerners would choose to split away from their former civil war foes.
"Dr Nafie Ali Nafie has acknowledged the failure of all the efforts to maintain the unity of Sudan," Suna said, reporting on a speech by the aide in Khartoum.
Nafie said he had been campaigning to keep north and south together, "but we shall accept the reality and must not deceive ourselves and stick to dreams," Suna quoted him as saying.
"Dr. Nafie said that the separation of south Sudan has become something expected because it is the orientation of Sudan People&${esc.hash}39;s Liberation Movement (the south&${esc.hash}39;s dominant party, the SPLM), which is backed by the West," said Suna.
A Sudanese journalist at the event confirmed the accuracy of the quotes to Reuters.
Southern leaders have accused President Bashir and his ruling northern National Congress Party (NCP) of plotting to disrupt the vote to keep control of the south&${esc.hash}39;s oil.
Both sides have spent months in negotiations over how they would share oil revenues after a split, among other issues, with little public sign of progress.
The southern army also accused the north of bombing its territory in November in December, saying Khartoum was trying to derail the vote by provoking a counter-attack.
U.N. officials this week confirmed the north had mounted raids in the south and a north-south ceasefire monitoring committee on Wednesday ruled three December air raids had broken the terms of the 2005 peace accord, said the United Nations.
"Bombings carried out by the government of Sudan in recent days at the frontier of the (southern) states of Bahr El-Ghazal and South Darfur (in the north), which have caused displacements of civil populations, are very worrying," French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.
Separately U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told the Security Council the U.N. mission in Sudan had been having problems getting visas for staff coming to Sudan ahead of the vote. "The government of Sudan currently has a backlog of 348 visa applications for UNMIS ... We urge the government to clear the pending visa applications without delay," he said.
Referendum observers from the Carter Centre late on Wednesday praised organisers for holding a "generally credible" registration of voters, despite a series of logistical problems. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Clarke in Juba and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; editing by Myra MacDonald)
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