South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir appointed Nhial Deng Nhial as his new foreign minister after removing Deng Alor Kuol on Tuesday. Here are some key facts about Mr Nhial.

Born in 1952, Nhial, a son of a well-known politician William Deng Nhial who was assassinated in 1968, started his education in his hometown of Tonj before going to Comboni College in Khartoum, where he graduated in 1975.

He was admitted to Khartoum University in 1976 where he studied law, finishing in 1980. Later also he was awarded a law degree (JD) from the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom in 2008.

Fluent in both English and Arabic, Nhial briefly worked with the Sudanese government after finishing university studies, before joining the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in 1983. 

Nhial received military training on joining the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement during the north-south civil war and held administrative and diplomatic assignments.  

He played a role in coordinating several informal peace talks including the bilateral discussions with the Sudanese government in 1989 following the fall of the civilian government of al-Sadig al-Mahdi to the current government of Omar al Bashir.

Nhial became governor in the SPLM-controlled areas covering Greater Bahr el Ghazal region after the 1994 Chukudum convention in which SPLM civil administration structures were first formed. He served in that capacity until late 1997, and then resumed coordination of foreign missions on behalf of the movement.

He was involved in the 2003-2004 Naivasha talks that eventually led to the signing of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and SPLM.

Following the successful conclusion of the Naivasha peace accord, Nhial worked in the regional Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) in which he was appointed as Minister of Regional Cooperation in 2005 by President Salva Kiir.

However, he abruptly resigned from the cabinet less than six month later. No clear explanation for this move was made.

He later returned to government and was appointed Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs in December 2008, replacing General Dominic Dim Deng who died in a plane crash in May 2008. He returned to the regional cabinet with the military rank of Lieutenant General in the SPLA.

Nhial remained South Sudan’s Minister of Defense through the independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011 until his appointment on 26 August 2011 as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

On 23 July 2013, President Salva Kiir issued decrees dissolving his entire cabinet, dismissing his vice president Riek Machar, and suspending Pagan Amum from the position of Secretary General of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

In December 2013, a number of top SPLM leaders fell out with President Salva Kiir during SPLM party meetings, but Nhial played a low profile role and decided on going with the majority and remained with Kiir.

Fighting erupted within the presidential guards on 15 December, plunging South Sudan into civil war. In the period that followed, Nhial was tasked by President Salva Kiir to serve as lead negotiator for the government in talks between the warring parties.

Nhial Deng Nhial remains chief negotiator and a member of the SPLM Political Bureau loyal to President Kiir. In May 2016, Nhial was appointed as a senior adviser and presidential envoy after a peace deal was signed with SPLM-IO led by former vice president Riek Machar, a position he held until his reappointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 17 July, 2018.