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Washington, DC — Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir appealed to Washington on Friday for heightened international engagement in preparations for the January referendum in which southerners are expected to vote to secede from Sudan, Africa's largest country.

"The future of Sudan is hanging in the balance," Kiir said in a keynote address to the annual Congressional Black Caucus Africa policy roundtable hosted by Rep. Donald Payne, the New Jersey Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.

Wearing his trademark black cowboy hat, which emphasizes his lofty stature, Kiir said his government "is moving heaven and earth" to enable the vote "to take place correctly and on time." He accused the government in Khartoum of "foot-dragging" and called on the international community to make clear "that no disruption or delay to these referenda can be tolerated."

Introducing Kiir to an audience of several hundred at the Washington Convention Center, Payne promised his continued backing, saying that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement reached in 2005 that ended two decades of bloody conflict must be respected. "We will not allow the clock to be turned back," he said.

The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will take in a summit next Friday hosted by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to help move the process forward and avoid a return to war. Participants will include Kiir and his counterpart from the north, Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.

But Payne said Kiir has not been offered a meeting with any senior administration official on this trip and has never met a top administration official or been invited to the White House by President Obama. He contrasted that with the four visits the Sudanese leader had with President George W. Bush, who took an active role in pressing for the 2005 accord.

Kiir said "the timing of the referenda is sacrosanct," rejecting suggestions that the vote be delayed while negotiations to settle outstanding issues are resolved. "The weight of our history, the depths of our peoples' suffering and corresponding expectations, the promises of their leaders both in the North and South, and the guarantees of the international community create no space for wavering on this," he said.

He cited two issues "of well-known concern" that still need to be resolved. A "mutually agreed" formula for sharing oil revenues should provide "equal economic benefits" for both populations, he said. And agreement must be reached to protect the "safety and rights" of southerners in the North and northerners in the South. "These negotiations will not succeed without the help of the international community, and in particular the leadership of the United States," he said.

After the referendum, he said his government will strive "to responsibly and sustainably exploit our country's natural resources, while also recognizing the need to diversify our country's economy, and in particular to develop our agricultural sector." And he pledged "transparent and accountable government where nepotism and corruption have no place" and where "minority rights are protected."