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South Sudan: Warring parties head to Ethiopia for peace talks
South Sudan President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency in two states on Wednesday as his negotiators prepared for peace talks with rebels to end more than 2 weeks of fighting that has pushed the country towards civil war.
Kiir called the emergency in Unity and Jonglei states, the 2 regions whose capitals are now controlled by forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, who has been accused of plotting a coup.
Both sides are under mounting pressure from regional powers to reach a deal to stop the fighting in the world’s newest state.
The delegation aligned to Machar arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa ready for the ceasefire talks. They said government negotiators had not yet arrived.
Both sides have agreed in principle to a ceasefire but neither has indicated when the fighting would stop and mediators are concerned that fighting around the flashpoint town of Bor will scupper the talks even before they begin. South Sudan’s defense minister earlier said government forces were battling rebel fighters 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of Bor, the capital of Jonglei state, which has untapped oil reserves.
Forces aligned to Machar seized control of Bor on Tuesday.
The Addis Ababa talks will focus on finding ways to roll out and monitor the ceasefire, the East African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) bloc that is mediating the talks said. The clashes, which have spread to half the country’s 10 states have unsettled oil markets.
“We don’t want to expose the people of South Sudan to a senseless war,” South Sudan’s Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said on a government Twitter feed on Wednesday. Kiir has accused his long-term political rival Machar, whom he dismissed in July on corruption charges, of starting the fighting in a bid to seize power.
South Sudan’s neighbors, and international partners played a central role in negotiations that ended decades of war with Sudan to the north and led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011, and have been scrambling to stem the latest violence.
Source: Reuters