Ethiopia PM to urge South Sudan rivals to seek peace

World
Europe

The two figures at the center of the civil war that has ravaged South Sudan met for the first time in nearly two years on Wednesday evening in the Ethiopian capital.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, who fled South Sudan in July 2016, went into a closed door meeting at the Ethiopian prime minister's office in Addis Ababa.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir arrives to negotiate with South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

The official scope of the talks is broad -- to build bridges between the two -- but analysts say the outcome remains unclear given their notoriously volatile relationship and entrenched positions.

Once comrades-in-arms in the fight for independence, Kiir and Machar experienced a bitter falling out, a development that played a key part in the civil war that blights the future of the world's youngest state. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly a third of the country's 12 million population have been driven out of their homes, and many to the brink of starvation.

South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar arrives to meet President of South Sudan Salva Kiir in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

The two warring leaders travelled to Addis Ababa at the invitation of Ethiopia's new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who also chairs the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) a regional bloc that has taken the lead in thus-far fruitless peace negotiations.

Abiy "will call upon the two leaders to narrow their gap and work for the pacification of South Sudan and relieve the burden of death and uprooting of South Sudanese people," Meles Alem, Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman, said.

IGAD heads of state are due to meet in Addis Ababa on Thursday, hoping to get peace talks back on track.

Ethiopia's new prime minister Abiy Ahmed. /VCG Photo

A landlocked state with a large ethnic mix, South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long and brutal war. But in 2013, Kiir accused Machar, his vice president, of plotting a coup against him, and violence erupted between the two factions, feeding on brooding ethnic tensions.

They had not met since July 2016, when heavy fighting in the capital Juba signaled the collapse of a 2015 peace deal and Machar fled to South Africa. The renewed violence spread across the country, spawning numerous new armed opposition groups and further complicating peace efforts.

Observers say Kiir has little incentive to make concessions to his rivals. His soldiers are winning militarily, while the opposition is more fractured than ever before. Efforts to revitalize the 2015 agreement resulted in a ceasefire in December which lasted just hours before warring parties accused each other of breaking it.

The meeting in Addis Ababa comes against a background of growing international frustration. In May, the UN Security Council gave the two warring sides a month to reach a peace deal or face sanctions.

Washington was a critical backer of South Sudan during its separation from Sudan, and remains Juba's biggest aid donor. But a top US official earlier this month threatened parties on both sides of the conflict with sanctions after a report from a US foundation, The Sentry, said South Sudanese elites were profiting from human rights abuses.

8324km

Source(s): AFP