KHARTOUM, Jan 7 (Reuters) - North and South Sudan could join forces in a European Union-style pact if southerners vote to secede in Sunday's independence referendum, Sudan's president said in an interview on Friday.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told the Al-Jazeera TV channel that southerners could also be offered rights of free movement, residency, work and ownership in Sudan after a split, but added they could not be dual nationals.
They were the latest in a series of conciliatory comments from the president, two days ahead of the scheduled start of the vote on whether south Sudan should declare independence. (Reporting by Khaled Abdel Aziz, writing by Andrew Heavens)
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