New Delhi [India], September 17 (ANI): Deepak Miglani, who is presently serving as the Ambassador to Sao Tome and Principe, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to South Sudan, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in an official statement on Wednesday.
He is expected to take up the assignment shortly.
South Sudan was a part of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899-1955 under joint British Egyptian rule. After two civil wars (1962-72 and 1983-2005), it became an autonomous region (Southern Sudan ) in Sudan.
As per the MEA, in 2005, a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed (ceremony attended by the then Minister of State for External Affairs, E Ahmed) between the Government of Sudan and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Nairobi which led to the autonomy for the Southern part with a provision for South Sudanese referendum on independence in six years.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, following a referendum in January 2011. India was one of the first countries to recognise independent South Sudan and the then Vice President Hamid Ansari attended the Independence Day celebrations in Juba on July 9, 2011. The Indian Consulate in Juba, which opened in October 2007, was upgraded to the level of an Embassy in March 2012. South Sudan also opened its Embassy at New Delhi in August 2012. South Sudan and India have always enjoyed cordial and friendly relations.
Following a civil war that started in December 2013, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed among the warring partners in Addis Ababa on 12 September 2018. A transitional government of national unity (i.e., a coalition of signatory political partners based on the power-sharing formula envisaged in the Agreement) is in place at present. (ANI)
