Security Council diplomats say they are prepared to move on a
U.S.-drafted resolution that would implement an arms embargo if the
peace deal falls apart. It could also add additional individuals to a
U.N. blacklist.
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York
The U.N. Security Council on Friday welcomed the
signing of a peace agreement aimed at ending South Sudan's 20-month
civil war while warning that it remained ready to impose an arms embargo
on the country if the deal collapsed.
The
15-nation council's statement came as South Sudanese rebels and the army
accused each other for the second time this week of attacks that
appeared to undermine the fragile peace deal that President Salva Kiir reluctantly signed days after the rebel side accepted it.
"The
Security Council acknowledges that this agreement is the first step in
reversing the difficult political and economic situation, and
humanitarian and security catastrophe resulting from this crisis," the
council said.
The council added that it "calls upon the parties ... to fully implement the agreement."
The
statement included a threat to anyone undermining the agreement. It
spoke of the council's "readiness to consider appropriate measures ...
including through the imposition of an arms embargo and additional
targeted sanctions."
Security Council diplomats
say they are prepared to move on a U.S.-drafted resolution that would
implement an arms embargo if the peace deal falls apart. It could also
add additional individuals to a U.N. blacklist.
South
Sudan plunged into civil war in December 2013 when a political crisis
sparked fighting between forces loyal to Kiir and rebels allied with his
former deputy Riek Machar. The conflict has reopened ethnic fault lines
that pit Kiir's Dinka against Machar's ethnic Nuer forces.
Kiir,
who has led South Sudan since it seceded from Sudan in 2011, last week
asked for more time for consultations but was given a two-week deadline
to sign or risk U.N. sanctions. He ended up signing the deal but noted
that he had reservations.
Machar had signed it first.
Fighting
has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 2.2 million in
the oil-producing nation, 500,000 of whom have fled the country since
the civil war began. Many rely on aid to survive
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