President Salva Kiir has ordered the SPLA troops to withdraw five miles away from the border with the Sudan.

The presidential press secretary says this move will strengthen relations between the two countries.

Ateny Wek Ateny says the president has sent his envoy to Khartoum to try to convince Sudanese authorities to open the border to allow for cross-border trade.

“The president ordered the SPLA forces to withdraw up to 5 km south of January 1^st 1956, and also urging his counterpart the president of sister’s to country Field Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmed AL Bashir to replicate the same, by ordering his forces to withdraw north of 1956 border in order to normalize and make the border crossing very flexible,” said Ateny.

The border has not formally opened since the cross-border clashes in Heglig in 2012.

“We will wait for the president of the Republic of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir to replicate what his brother, Salva Kiir has to share on the two Sudans,” said the Press Secretary in the Office of the President.