South Sudan President Salva Kiir told his Chinese counterpart of Tuesday that Sudan had declared war on his newly-independent country, following weeks of border fighting between the two countries.
“It (this visit) comes at a very critical moment for the Republic of South Sudan because our neighbour in Khartoum has declared war on the Republic of South Sudan,'' Kiir told President Hu Jintao during a meeting in Beijing.
“I have undertaken this visit because of the great relationship that I value with China.
“China is one of our economic and strategic partners,” he added.
Kiir's visit comes days after he ordered troops to withdraw from the oil-rich Heglig region after seizing it from Sudan, a move that brought the two countries to the brink of all-out war.
Sudanese war planes bombed a market in the capital of South Sudan's oil-producing Unity State on Monday, residents and officials said, an attack the southern army called a declaration of war.
Sudan denied carrying out any air raids but its President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ramped up the political tension by ruling out a return to negotiations with the South, saying its government only understood “the language of the gun''.
Weeks of border fighting have brought the neighbours closer to a full-blown war than at any time since South Sudan split from Sudan as an independent country in July.
The two territories went their separate ways last year without settling a list of bitter disputes over the position of their shared border, the ownership of key territories and how much the landlocked South should pay to transport its oil through Sudan.(Reuters/NAN)
