Juba, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- South Sudanese Chief of Defence Forces Jok Riak (SPLA) on Thursday expressed the military's commitment to implementation of the permanent peace deal which was signed by warring parties early this month in Ethiopia.

South Sudan's army chief told the members of the Red Army Foundation during a thanksgiving ceremony in Juba that the killings that has pitted the army on ethnic line has costly affected the young East African nation dearly in the last four years, saying the army is desperately in search for peace in the country.

"The first people who need peace are we, the soldiers especially myself. I have 38 years in military uniform," Riak told the gathering of the ex-child soldiers.

In June, South Sudan's warring parties signed a Permanent Ceasefire Agreement in Khartoum, since then the parties have engaged in counter blame games over the truce violation.

Riak urged South Sudanese citizens to own the peace deal and should not allow politicians to own it and give them chance to derail the deal.

President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-in-opposition (SPLA-IO), agreed to the final peace deal mediated by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an east African bloc.

The conflict in South Sudan erupted in 2013 after forces loyal to president Kiir and his former deputy Machar engaged in combat.

A 2015 peace agreement to end the violence was again violated in July 2016, when rival factions resumed fighting in the capital, Juba, forcing Machar to flee into exile.

Millions of South Sudanese civilians have sought refuge in neighboring countries as the conflict rages on.