South Sudan's former vice president and prominent opposition leader Riek Machar has told Al Jazeera that his replacement by President Salva Kiir is "illegal".
In an exclusive phone interview on Wednesday, Machar said: "I'm still the first vice president of the republic of South Sudan. The appointment made yesterday by President Salva Kiir is illegal.
"It has no basis because the peace agreement does not give him the powers to appoint a first vice president under the current circumstances."
Kiir replaced Machar on Monday with General Taban Deng Gai, after a sharp surge in violence earlier this month between government and opposition fighters threatened to send the world's youngest country back to all-out civil war.
Machar fled the capital, Juba, more than two weeks ago and has been in hiding ever since.
'I'm around Juba'
Machar told Al Jazeera that he is currently "around Juba", adding, however, that he will only return to the capital when an outside force intervenes.
"I'm around Juba," he told Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan.
"I am waiting for the international community and regional body to say they will deploy troops to Juba and once they do that, I will return to implement the [peace] agreement."
But, Machar said, that if the international community failed to intervene, he might order his followers to make a move to march towards Juba in the future.
"As long as the international community and the regional third party force are being waited to deploy, we will not disrupt that," he said.
"But if they fail, this will be an indication that the whole agreement is forsaken by the international community and the regional body that brokered the peace agreement."
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