South Sudan's president sacks foreign minister

JUBA, South Sudan

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir dismissed Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Ramadan Abdallah Goc in his latest Cabinet reshuffle.

In a presidential decree read out Wednesday evening on the state-run South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC), Kiir sacked Goc and appointed him as a member of parliament

Kiir also announced the dismissal of Deputy Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba. However, Kumba was subsequently appointed as the new foreign minister in a separate decree.

No reasons were given for the dismissals, which follow the Foreign Ministry’s decision to allow entry to an individual deported from the United States, reversing an earlier rejection. The individual was identified by the US as Nimeri Garang, while South Sudan claimed he was Congolese citizen Makula Kintu.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement Saturday revoking visas to all South Sudanese over the government’s refusal to let in some of its citizens deported from the United States.

Kintu, who became the subject of a diplomatic row between South Sudan and the US, landed at Juba International Airport on Wednesday and was welcomed by immigration authorities, the Foreign Ministry said.

The oil-rich nation became the world's newest country in 2011 after seceding from Sudan, but it was then engulfed by civil war after Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar fell out.

A 2018 power-sharing agreement has been fraught with problems.

The peace deal gives the president the prerogative to appoint and dismiss government officials at both the national and state levels.

He can only appoint and dismiss officials who belong to other political parties with the consent of the leadership of those parties.