Addis Ababa — The Russian government has expressed strong and sincere interest to expand and diversify bilateral ties with the new state of South Sudan. This came in a meeting held by the President of the Republic H.E. Kiir with the Russian Presidential Envoy for African states Mr. Mikhail Margelov, on the margins of the 19th AU ordinary session of Assembly.

The Russian envoy appreciated South Sudan for opening its Embassy in Moscow and for developing and promoting good relations between the two countries. He added that the current Russian Ambassador based in Uganda will also be overseeing bilateral relations between the two countries. The Russian Envoy said South Sudan needs a lot of financial engineering companies since it is rich but most of its wealth is untapped and the interest of Russian companies to participate in the development of new oil pipelines and mining.

H.E Kiir on his part praised the current developing relations with Russia and asked Russian companies to come to Juba and peruse their fields of interest with the relevant ministries.