KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudans vice president said on Monday he accepted the oil-producing souths split after the first official results showed a 99 percent vote for independence in a referendum hoping to end a bitter cycle of civil war. The January 9 vote culminated a 2005 north-south peace deal, which aims to put an end to the conflict which claimed 2 million lives and destabilized much of east Africa. The south will likely celebrate independence on July 9. We announce our agreement and our acceptance of the result of the referendum announced yesterday, Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha told reporters in the norths first reaction since the results. We wish our brothers in the south good luck and a fruitful future in organizing the issues surrounding the new country. The comments end speculation that hard-line elements in the Khartoum government would delay recognition of the referendum to garner leverage ahead of talks on how to divide the countrys assets and liabilities. We expect this outcome to be confirmed by members of the international community, South Sudans President Salva Kiir said at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa. We have no interest in returning to the bitterness and divisions of the past. We desire the democratic transformation of Sudan. Today the ballot box has triumphed over the bullet. Observers have urged the north and south to resolve outstanding disputes over the border - along which much of the countrys oil wealth lies - and the status of the central Abyei region claimed by both. Meanwhile, Sudan called on Monday on the United States to lift sanctions, a day after provisional results showed south Sudan voted almost unanimously to secede in a referendum. The United States had declared the peaceful conduct of South Sudans January independence referendum a top priority and offered the Khartoum government a 'roadmap to full ties if it allowed the vote to proceed and made progress on Darfur. While Washington has praised Sudan for the January vote, officials have said they are still concerned about the situation in Darfur, where violence continues to crackle. We have delivered what we promised. We now want all sanctions to be lifted, Foreign Minister Ali Karti told Reuters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Ethiopia. Darfur should not be attached on this. We are providing our full cooperation with them to solve the issue, he said. Karti hoped the peaceful conduct of the vote would provide an opening for economic opportunities for his isolated country, which has long faced embargoes. Meanwhile, a student in Sudan died from his injuries after being beaten by security forces who broke up anti-government demonstrations inspired by protests in neighbouring Egypt, activists said on Monday. Three activists told Reuters that Mohamed Abdelrahman, a student from Khartoums Omdurman Ahaliya University, died in hospital from his injuries late on Sunday and had been buried. The university has been closed indefinitely. It was the first reported death in student protests that have erupted in several cities. On Sunday night, students at Khartoum university were beaten and teargassed in their dormitories with at least five injured. Protests were also held in el-Obeid town in the west and Kassala in the east, with hundreds of young people being beaten by police with batons, activists said.