S. SUDAN WARRING PARTIES AGREE TO DELAY FORMING UNITY GOVERNMENT

South Sudan President Salva Kiir (right) shakes hands with opposition leader Riek Machar during a meeting at State House Entebbe, Uganda on November 7, 2019.

By Our Correspondent, ENTEBBE Uganda

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar on Thursday agreed to delay key benchmarks in the peace deal by 100 days.

Both parties agreed to push back the deadline at tripartite talks hosted by neighbouring Uganda, a guarantor to South Sudan's peace deal.

The delay in forming a transitional government by November 12 came after the main opposition group threatened to opt out of the deadline, saying security arrangements are incomplete.

The parties had failed to resolve several outstanding issues as the November 12 deadline loomed for forming a transitional government with Machar as first vice president.

Key critical tasks in the peace deal have yet to be implemented, including drawing internal boundaries and creating a national army.

In a communique issued at the end of the meeting in Entebbe, both sides agreed to delay the formation of a unity government, just days before it was due to be established by President Kiir with or without his arch-rival Riek Machar.

The two principles agreed to review progress in the implementation of the peace agreement after 50 days and that a report will be submitted to the IGAD heads of state and parties.

“The parties agreed to establish a mechanism from the guarantors and the parties to supervise the implementation of the critical tasks,” the communique said.  

President Museveni hosted Kiir, Sudan’s President of the Transitional Sovereign Council Abdulfattah Abdulrahman as well as Dr Riek Machar for a ‘tripartite summit’ on the agreement whose implementation was threatening to implode the country.

Also present at the meeting was Kenya’s former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, now Nairobi’s special envoy to South Sudan.

“Today at State House Entebbe, I chaired the Tripartite Summit on the Revitalised Agreement seeking to resolve the South Sudan conflict. I thank Their Excellencies Salva Kiir and Riek Machar for coming and holding candid discussions,” Museveni tweeted shortly after the daylong meeting ended.

Sudan and Uganda are guarantors to the peace deal that seeks to end nearly six years of civil war in South Sudan.

Today’s meeting also called on the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc for East Africa, to address the status of opposition leader Riek Machar.

Puok Both Baluang, the opposition SPLM-IO’s director of information, confirmed the details to our correspondent. - Africa