Rice With Sudanese First VP Salva Kiir

Remarks With Sudanese First Vice President Salva Kiir Before Their Meeting

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Treaty Room
Washington, DC
July 20, 2006

(2:20 p.m. EDT)

SECRETARY RICE: I am pleased to welcome the Vice President of Sudan and the President of Southern Sudan, Mr. Salva Kiir. We earlier met with the President and we will now meet to follow up on some of the issues that were raised there.

We are committed to a free and prosperous and democratic Sudan. We were pleased to play a role in the conclusion of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement for the people of Sudan that ended a very long civil war between North and South, and we are now committed to ending the violence in Darfur so that Sudan can be whole and at peace.

And I want to thank you, sir, for your devotion to your people, for your devotion to peace and for your friendship with America.

VICE PRESIDENT KIIR: Thank you, Madame.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, has the government --

SECRETARY RICE: Excuse me. He'd like to say a word.

QUESTION: Oh, sorry, I thought he didn't want to.

VICE PRESIDENT KIIR: I'm happy to be here, as I said in the morning, and to be invited by the President of the United States of America. It is a privilege and we have discussed various of things concerning Sudan. The implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, bringing peace to Darfur, to eastern Sudan, and making and transforming the country into a democratic, multiparty nation, which of course has been our goal for a very, very long time and we are committed to this. Thank you very much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

VICE PRESIDENT KIIR: I'm happy to be here.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. It's a pleasure. 2006/701

Released on July 20, 2006

ENDS

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