Kiir will also meet with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.

The visit is Kiir's first foreign trip since he assumed his new post after his predecessor and former southern rebel leader John Garang was killed in a helicopter crash last month.

Kiir, as Garang's deputy, played a major role in negotiating a power-sharing peace deal between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement to end Africa's longest civil war.

Egypt, which shares a lengthy desert border with Sudan, is a keypower broker in Sudan's peace process.