Buhari urges warring leaders to honour peace agreement

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in New York called on warring leaders in South Sudan to honour the terms of the Peace Agreement they signed in Aug. 2015.

A statement issued in Abuja by the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said Buhari made the call at the meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council on the Situation in South Sudan.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the ongoing 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA71), in New York on Monday.

The President described the unconditional implementation of the Agreement as the “cornerstone of peace and reconciliation” in that country.

He noted that whatever reservations that might exist against the agreement, “should under no circumstances be the pretext for failure to implement the Agreement.”

According to the President, it is regrettable that lack of unity and political progress in South Sudan has remained a major obstacle to peace.

Buhari noted that recurrent conflict and political instability with grave human rights and humanitarian consequences have overshadowed any progress that might have been made towards South Sudan’s development.

He also stressed the need for stronger cooperation among the United Nations, the African Union and Intergovernmental Authority for Development and other stakeholders for the immediate deployment of the Regional Protection Force in South Sudan, as mandated by Security Council Resolution 2304.

He expressed the hope that such action would strengthen the peace process in the beleaguered East-Central African nation and newest member-state of the United Nations,

The president condemned “in strong terms crimes against civilians of all ethnic groups and political parties and attacks on United Nations Mission personnel as well as local and international aid workers in South Sudan’’.

He maintained that perpetrators of such heinous crimes “must not be allowed to go unpunished.”