South Sudan president vows to renew strong relations with U.S., UN

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Tuesday regretted recent tense relations with both the United States and the United Nations and vowed to restore strong ties with the two influential powers.

"We must admit our relation with the UN has not been smooth over the last three years. However, the new UN Secretary General is a pragmatic man and my government pledges to work with him very closely to improve our relationship with the UN system," Kiir told parliament in Juba.

"The new Head of UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is also someone I have confidence will work closely with the government to improve our relations," he added.

Kiir disclosed that the UN and the international community had in the past bullied and treated his country with contempt and praised African countries like Egypt, Senegal and Angola which ensured that a U.S.-led proposal to impose arms embargo and sanctions against South Sudan failed at the UN Security Council.

"While we are grateful for all the support we have received from the international community and the UN system, our main point of contention with the UN has been that South Sudan was not accorded the respect that it deserves as a member state of this world body. We were treated with contempt and largely bullied and we hope this treatment will be put to an end," Kiir said.

The president said South Sudan is also prepared for an improved diplomatic relation with the United States.

"It is no secret we had a strong feeling that the previous U.S administration might have sought a regime change agenda in South Sudan and largely complicated the peace process with all the threats of sanctions and arbitrary deadlines, we know that the new U.S administration will take a different direction on South Sudan," he said.

Kiir expressed optimism that his transitional unity government (TGoNU) formed in April, last year would closely move to restore bilateral cooperation with Washington under President Donald Trump despite being critical of the past Obama administration for taking hard line positions against the youngest nation.

"Our government has taken and will continue to take all necessary steps to work very closely with the Trump administration to achieve mutual interests. We believe that a strong bilateral cooperation between South Sudan and the U.S will end all the destabilizing hands of external actors in our affairs," Kiir added.

He also lauded the regional body Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the East African Community (EAC) countries which helped broker the 2015 peace agreement to end over three years of conflict in the country as viable allies.

"Despite the attempts to isolate South Sudan diplomatically, we continue to enjoy wonderful diplomatic relations in the region and around the world," he revealed.

"South Sudan has a very good relationship with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. We have also witnessed stronger relationship with our sisterly country Sudan. In other words our country has good working relations with all Inter-Governmental Authority on Development as well as members of the East African Community," he added.

He also added that the TGoNU was looking toward working closely with the new African Union (AU) leadership.

"We will continue to work closely with these countries for mutually beneficial engagements. We are hopeful that the election of the new African Union (AU) chair his Excellency Alpha Conde and the AU Commission chairperson Musa Faki will take our relations with the AU to new heights," he said.

Source: Xinhua