A top American official says the United States would support an arms embargo on South Sudan if it does not allow the regional protection force to deploy or continues to block the movement of UN peacekeepers.
“We need to see concrete progress in the deployment of the (protection force), and concrete progress on securing movement for UN peacekeepers,’ US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.
The UN Security Council recently mandated that 4,000 extra peacekeepers enter South Sudan with a bolstered mandate to protect civilians. The government says the force violates its sovereignty.
Power said that South Sudan’s leaders would have to make progress before the end of the month to avoid an arms embargo. But the threat of an arms embargo is not new from the US government. Since South Sudan’s civil war began in 2013, the US has shielded the country from an arms embargo at the UN Security Council, and State Department officials say they believe the threat of an embargo can coerce the country’s leaders.
Power recently led a four day UN Security Council visit to South Sudan.
“Council members came away feeling as if the situation was much worse than even we went in expecting,” Power said. “The government was requiring written permission for secure movements for the UN in a way that we’ve not seen anywhere else in the world,” Power said.
“The clock is ticking,” she added.