S. Sudan rebel leader fails to sign Khartoum peace deal

By Mohammed Amin

KHARTOUM (AA) – After two months of peace talks in Khartoum, South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar — and a handful of other rebel leaders — refused to sign a final peace deal with Juba on Tuesday aimed at ending five years of fighting in the nascent country.

While members of a government delegation sent by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir have already signed on to the agreement, members of Machar’s South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) have steadfastly refused to do so.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Aldirdiri Mohamed Ahmed told reporters on Tuesday in Khartoum that both the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM/IO) and the SSOA had refused to sign on to the agreement.

In light of the deadlock, the South Sudanese peace process will now be referred to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country East African trade bloc based in Djibouti, Aldirdiri said.

According to the foreign minister, outstanding points of contention between Juba and the South Sudanese opposition have to do with government decision-making and the constitution.

“Everything was addressed; we shared all the amendments with all the parties,” Aldirdiri said. “The [peace] document was created by all, initialed in different stages by all and accepted.”

But in light of Machar’s refusal to sign, he added, the document “will now be referred to IGAD… which will invite all the parties [to the conflict] to sign”.

Since June, South Sudan’s warring camps have been holding peace talks in the Sudanese capital. The talks have thus far produced a power-sharing deal, a security arrangement and a temporary ceasefire.

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