JUBA/KHARTOUM, May 28 (Reuters) - South Sudan's vice president will meet northern officials on Saturday to try to defuse tensions between the two sides, an official and state media said, just six weeks before the south is set to secede.
Northern Sudanese armed forces seized the disputed Abyei region last week, sparking an international outcry and raising fears the north and south could return to full-blown conflict.
Vice President Riek Machar was expected to arrive with a delegation of southern officials in the northern capital Khartoum on Saturday, said Mangar Amerdid, a spokesman for south Sudanese President Salva Kiir.
"His Excellency Riek Machar is travelling to Khartoum today for talks. He is seeing if there is any way to ease the tension between north and south," he said.
North Sudanese official and other media said Machar would meet north Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha to discuss Abyei and other issues.
Southern Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to secede in a January referendum guaranteed by a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and south. (Reporting by Jeremy Clarke in Juba and Alexander Dziadosz in Khartoum; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz)
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