The United States on Tuesday expressed
"concern"
over
"growing tensions"
in South Sudan, and called on all parties to respect the peace agreement.
The SPLM/A-IO, the movement of Vice President Riek Machar and the main opposition force to President Salva Kiir, recently announced its withdrawal from the body responsible for monitoring the application of the 2018 peace agreement. movement accuses the army and forces loyal to the head of state of regularly carrying out attacks against its bases.
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In a statement, the spokesman for American diplomacy Ned Price deplored
"the recent clashes"
in the Upper Nile State and the withdrawal of the SPLM/A-IO from this body, which
"undermines the agreement of peace".
“We call on both parties to fully respect their obligations under the current peace agreement,”
he added, asking to
“immediately cease”
all
“inflammatory rhetoric”.
"Deterioration of the situation"
"The United States calls on President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar to do everything possible to lead to a de-escalation of tensions"
, he continued, considering that the two camps were
"responsible for the deterioration of the situation ".
"Neither President Kiir nor Vice-President Machar have made the necessary efforts in good faith to implement the measures intended to relaunch the peace agreement"
, regretted Ned Price.
After the independence obtained from Sudan in 2011, MM.
Kiir and Machar had plunged their country, the youngest in the world, into a bloody civil war, which left nearly 400,000 dead and 4 million displaced, between 2013 and 2018. It officially ended in September 2018 with an agreement of peace enacting a principle of power sharing.
But this agreement remains largely unimplemented more than two years after the entry into office, in February 2020, of a government of national unity.
The country is plagued by violence, hunger and an economic crisis marked by galloping inflation.