South Sudan President Salva Kiir (Photo Courtesy United Nations)

Senator John Kerry delivered the administration's offer while on an official visit to the country in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

He said on Sunday, “I believe a broad agreement is within reach if they act with the sense of urgency that is necessary to seize this historic opportunity.”

Sudan is due to hold a referendum on southern independence in early January 2011, which will be the culmination of a peace agreement the parties reached in 2005 that stopped a decades-long civil war in the country. 

The south will be deciding whether or not to secede from Sudan.  The referendum will also decide the fate of the oil-rich province of Abyei, which will either become a part of the north or the south.

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