JUBA, Sudan, Jan 13 (Reuters) - South Sudan's independence referendum will meet international standards, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is observing the plebiscite, said on Thursday.
"I believe it will meet international standards on the conduct of the process and also the freedom with which people have cast their votes ... We have two more days to go obviously but I don't think there is any doubt the results will be accepted without serious challenge," Carter told journalists in the southern capital Juba.
Southerners are widely expected to vote to declare independence from the north in the week-long vote which started on Sunday, a plebiscite promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war. (Reporting by Jeremy Clarke)
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