Juba- South Sudan and Eritrea have signed a military pact that will see an enhanced cooperation between the two neighbors on a high level in coming years. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed the top-secret military pact in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
According to a top South Sudanese official, there has been a secret military agreement in the work since March. The President went there after President Isaias invited him and this deal is secret, and the government does not want people to know. Understandably so, Africa’s youngest nation has been in a war that has lefts tens of thousands dead and millions displaced and have only recently established a peace deal and truce between the opposing sides.
The said military deal between the two countries can be viewed as a strategic decision by South Sudan seeing as the nation is faced with ever-growing threats both domestic and otherwise. The United Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo on South Sudan in May, making it somewhat difficult for the young nation to use open markets to buy weapons and ammunition. The United States also imposed its own arms embargo on South Sudan in February. Analysts have termed the moved as unconventional especially because of the clandestine nature in which it has been conducted but believe that the cooperation would give South Sudan an ally and upper hand in the event the rebels fail to honor their peace brokered earlier in the month.
