South Sudan President Salva Kiir said he is not planning to pull his army out from the oil-rich region of Heglig after being asked to do so by the international community.
The UN Security Council and the African Union have expressed fears for a new Sudan war. The AU demanded yesterday for an immediate withdraw of the South from Heglig.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after talking to President Salva Kiir he had suggested an immediate summit between the two countries to build confidence and reaffirm that dialogue was the only solution.
In a response to the same talk, Salva Kiir told the members of the South Sudan parliament today:
‘I told him you do not need to order me because I am not under your command. I am a head of state accountable to my people and do not have to be ordered by someone I do not fall under his direct command. I will not withdraw the troops’.
The U.N. Security Council met in public on Thursday to read out a statement demanding ‘a complete, immediate and unconditional end to all fighting’ between Sudan and South Sudan. The council statement insisted that both countries redeploy their forces 10 kilometers (16 miles) away from a border that they both recognized last year.