Regional bloc invites S.Sudan Rivals to discuss in Addis

South Sudanese rivals have been invited to hold talks in the Ethiopian capital next week to give a boost to a fragile peace deal that has seen several setbacks, according to a letter seen Thursday by the US government. AFP.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc for East Africa, on Wednesday invited both sides to the invitation, chaired by President Salva Kiir and the Opposition leader Riek Machar.

The letter urges them to attend the talks on 2-3 May in Addis Ababa to discuss "the implementation of the peace agreement and the way forward".

The peace agreement, signed in September, put an end to most of the civil war ravaging the youngest country in the world since December 2013, killing 400,000 people and displacing 4 million people.

But the formation of a transitional government reuniting the two camps has not yet taken place.

Machar – who fled the capital Juba in 2016 when a previous peace deal had been broken – asked for a six-month deadline, saying it was too dangerous for his return.

Last weekend, Kiir invited Machar, his former vice president and longtime ally in the struggle for South Sudan's independence, to return to Juba from neighboring Sudan.

The continued absence of Machar would destroy the current peace agreement, he warned.

The transitional government is expected to be formed by the deadline of 12 May and Machar will resume his duties as Vice President.

Representatives of the government and the opposition confirmed to AFP that they had received the invitation from IGAD and that they had the intention to participate in discussions.

But there were differences in what they expected.

For the government, the talks should focus on "the arrangements that will lead to preparations for the formation of the transitional government in May," said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Southern Sudan, Mawien Makol.

But the leader of an opposition group, Peter Mayen Majongdit, said that the Addis talks should decide "whether the government will be formed or not" in May.

Political unrest in neighboring Sudan, where longtime President Omar al-Bashir – one of the leading architects of South Sudan's deal – was ousted two weeks ago, raised fears that the peace agreement is weakened.