By Opheera McDoom and Skye Wheeler

KHARTOUM/JUBA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - North Sudanese troops will redeploy from the south by the end of the year and joint forces will patrol the oil fields which produce 500,000 barrels per day of crude, officials said on Thursday.

Funds have been set aide for a census ahead of elections due by 2009, the first democratic polls in more than two decades, and 60 laws will be reviewed as part of the recent deal between Sudan's former foes to end a political crisis, they said.

The former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) withdrew from the national coalition government in October, complaining that the landmark 2005 north-south peace deal was not being implemented.

On Tuesday the two sides said they had resolved all problems except the status of the central oil-rich Abyei region.

"All the redeployment of the troops is going to finish by Dec 31. and then the most important thing is that the joint integrated units are going to take over protection of the oil," SPLM deputy secretary-general Yasir Arman told Reuters.

Under the deal, separate northern and southern armies were formed with joint units to patrol main towns and oil fields. But the north missed a July 9 deadline for redeploying north of the border, leaving most of its troops still in southern oil fields.

Khartoum says it has only 3,600 troops in the south, but SPLM Chairman Salva Kiir put the figure at 17,000.

The political settlement also provided funds for a census, due to begin next year, and an agreement to review some 60 laws which contravene the new constitution, SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum told Reuters.

"Money for the ... border demarcation and the census has been given ... The funds have already arrived in their accounts on Wednesday," he added.

The presidency will meet on Saturday to decide when new SPLM ministers will be sworn into the coalition government and to continue talks on Abyei, Amum added.

The 2005 agreement ended Africa's longest civil war, an intermittent conflict that began in 1955 over issues including power-sharing, religion, ethnicity, ideology and oil, and which claimed 2 million lives.

The reconciliation may also help ease tension in Sudan's western Darfur region where all the main rebel groups boycotted the opening of peace talks in October. No date has been set for a resumption of negotiations.

Some Darfur rebels united under SPLM mediation but many expressed distrust of the Khartoum government, given the non-implementation of the north-south deal. (Writing by Opheera McDoom, editing by Tim Pearce)

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