South Sudan President Appoints Own Defense Minister, Breaching Peace Deal

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir addresses the opening session of parliament in Juba, South Sudan August 30, 2021. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir addresses the opening session of parliament in Juba, South Sudan August 30, 2021. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
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South Sudan President Appoints Own Defense Minister, Breaching Peace Deal

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir addresses the opening session of parliament in Juba, South Sudan August 30, 2021. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir addresses the opening session of parliament in Juba, South Sudan August 30, 2021. REUTERS/Jok Solomun/File Photo

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has appointed a member of his own party as defense minister, according to a decree read on state media, breaching a peace deal in which the role should be selected by the party of opposition leader Riek Machar.

Kiir fired defense minister Angelina Teny, who is also First Vice President Machar's wife, along with the interior minister this month, re-igniting long-standing disagreements over how the two
war veterans share power, AFP said.

Kiir and Machar's forces signed a peace agreement in 2018 that ended five years of civil war that killed 400,000 people and triggered Africa's biggest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Implementation of the deal has been slow, and bouts of fighting have continued to kill and displace large numbers of civilians.

According to the decree read on state TV late on Wednesday, Kiir replaced Teny with Chol Thon Balok, a loyal general and former governor of Upper Nile state.

"The appointment of Chol Thon as a minister of defense is unilateral and a blatant violation of the peace agreement," said Puok Both Baluang, Machar's spokesperson, calling for Teny to be reinstated.

A meeting this month aimed at resolving the rift between Kiir and Machar ended in a deadlock. The stalemate is likely to cause paralysis in the implementation of the peace deal, which is meant to culminate in a national election at the end of 2024, said Boboya James, a policy analyst at the Juba-based Institute of Social Policy and Research.

"(Kiir) wants to have all the powerful institutions," James said. "What he is doing is to consolidate that level of power between now and towards the elections."



US Approves $385 Mln Arms Sale for Taiwan

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te gives a keynote address on the island's national day. in Taipei, Taiwan October 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te gives a keynote address on the island's national day. in Taipei, Taiwan October 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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US Approves $385 Mln Arms Sale for Taiwan

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te gives a keynote address on the island's national day. in Taipei, Taiwan October 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te gives a keynote address on the island's national day. in Taipei, Taiwan October 10, 2024. (Reuters)

The US State Department has approved the potential sale of spare parts for F-16 jets and radars to Taiwan for an estimated $385 million, the Pentagon said on Friday, a day before Taiwan President Lai Ching-te starts a sensitive Pacific trip.

The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei, to the constant anger of Beijing.

Democratically governed Taiwan rejects China's claims of sovereignty.

China has been stepping up military pressure against Taiwan, including two rounds of war games this year, and security sources have told Reuters that Beijing may hold more to coincide with Lai's tour of the Pacific, which includes stopovers in Hawaii and Guam, a US territory.

The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the sale consisted of $320 million in spare parts and support for F-16 fighters and Active Electronically Scanned Array Radars and related equipment.

The State Department also approved the potential sale to Taiwan of improved mobile subscriber equipment and support for an estimated $65 million, the Pentagon said. The principal contractor for the $65 million sale is General Dynamics.

Last month, the United States announced a potential $2 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defense missile system battle tested in Ukraine.

Lai leaves for Hawaii on Saturday on what is officially a stopover on the way to Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, three of the 12 countries that still to have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei. He will also stop over in Guam.

Hawaii and Guam are home to major US military bases.

China on Friday urged the United States to exercise "utmost caution" in its relations with Taiwan.

The State Department said it saw no justification for what it called a private, routine and unofficial transit by Lai to be used as a pretext for provocation.