South Sudan's Kiir offers to mediate in Sudan conflict

South Sudan President Salva Kiir on Friday has offered to mediate talks between the warring parties in Sudan to end the conflict.

This comes after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir mediated South Sudan talks between South Sudanese warring leaders in the Sudanese Capital, Khartoum.

The South Sudan parties are scheduled to sign a peace agreement on Sunday.

Speaking to journalists in Juba today, Kiir said:” We are ready to participate and to contribute to the solution of this conflict. Even if we solve our problems here in South Sudan and there is conflict in Sudan, we will not really develop the way we had wanted to develop because we see Sudan as our main gate of getting out to the outside world.”

Fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in the Kordofan and Blue Nile regions broke out in 2011, and conflict in Darfur began in 2003.

Kiir pointed out that his initiative to mediate the conflict in Sudan was hindered when Sudan started accusing South Sudan of supporting Sudanese rebels.

“It is because Sudan was accusing us of supporting her rebels this is why we did not get involve. But we didn’t have any support to any rebel in Sudan,” he said.

Separately, the South Sudanese leader vowed to implement the peace agreement he will sign with opposition groups in Khartoum on Sunday.

He pointed out that the peace agreement will not collapse again. “The agreement of 2015 was forced on us. We were not given the opportunity to express our desire and this is why when I came and signed the agreement of 2015, I gave my reservations. I was afraid that this agreement will not hold and I gave 26 reasons. People didn’t take me serious until when agreement collapsed in their faces,”Kiir said.

“This agreement will not collapse and I am sure that it will not collapse because the people of South Sudan have now agreed that they must make peace among themselves,” he added.