WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- Though the people of South Sudan are congratulated as the move toward independence, the situation there is "fraught and fragile," a U.S. diplomat said.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he was sending a team of high-ranking diplomats to Juba to attend ceremonies Saturday marking South Sudan's inaugural Independence Day.
Susan Rice, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, leads the delegation that includes Princeton Lyman, the U.S. envoy to Sudan, and former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell.
Washington in 2005 helped broker a peace agreement that gave southern Sudan the right to form an independent state. The deal helped end a civil war, though conflict continues to rage along the border between the northern and southern regions of Sudan.
Sudanese leaders have agreed to an Ethiopian peacekeeping mission along the border and Friday, China's official Xinhua news agency noted that the Sudanese government in Khartoum formally recognized South Sudan's independence.
"The Republic of Sudan announces its recognition of the establishment of the Republic of South Sudan as an independent state with sovereignty as of July 9, 2011, according to the borders of Jan. 1, 1956, and according to the two sides' borders which were standing when the comprehensive peace agreement was inked on Jan. 9, 2005," a government statement carried by the news agency read.
Rice in a statement, however, said there were outstanding issues, such as the status of the border region of Abyei and the conflict in South Kordofan state.
Though independence was a milestone, she said, there were many concerns remaining.
"This is a fragile and fraught moment as well," she said in a statement.
