ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- The conflict in South Sudan should be sustainably resolved by African people utilizing African ways, Chinese ambassador to South Sudan He Xiangdong said on Monday.
Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, He said the conflict in South Sudan may seem difficult to resolve, but its sustainable solution lies within the African continent.
The Chinese ambassador was speaking in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa at the sidelines of the opening day of an IGAD summit held to assess the progress of South Sudan peace process.
South Sudan is a member nation of the eight nations East African bloc IGAD.
"We hope African issues should be resolved by African people in African ways, because the future of African people should be mustered by the African people themselves, that's also the case for South Sudanese issue," said He.
"China has been actively involved and supports the effort of all South Sudanese parties and IGAD countries and AU to resolve the issue of South Sudan," he further said.
"I think on punitive matters we need to further consultation with IGAD countries and AU. Definitely, a certain kind of pressure is needed to push the peace process to move forward, while at the same time be cautious of results of all the possible measures, because we need to put result first. Any measure needs to be carefully calculated to see if it's helpful to resolve the problems or not," said the ambassador.
South Sudan has been embroiled in more than four years of conflict that has taken a devastating toll on the people, creating one of the most severe refugee crises in the world.
