Meeting in Addis Ababa comes days before a unity government is expected to be formed to end the six-year civil war.
South Sudan’s warring parties are set to hold talks in Addis Ababa on Thursday in a bid to salvage a stalled peace deal, with just days to go until a unity government is meant to be formed.
President Salva Kiir, rebel leader Riek Machar and a handful of other groups inked the peace deal in September 2018. It is the latest in a long line of efforts to end a devastating conflict now in its sixth year.
However, the parties have failed to resolve several crucial issues before a power-sharing government is to be installed on May 12, and are at odds over how to proceed.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc for East Africa, said in a statement it had called the two-day meeting to “develop a clear roadmap” for the formation of the government, and tackle “pending tasks of the agreement”.
The government has insisted the meeting must focus on how to push forward with the formation of the unity government, while Machar’s camp wants a delay of six months to resolve issues such as security for his return.
Machar is living in exile in Khartoum, having been hounded out of Juba in a hail of gunfire in 2016 when a prior deal collapsed.
He is set to return as first vice president under the new deal.
Observers say crucial steps envisioned in the deal such as establishing a unified army and discussing security control of the capital have yet to take place.
“We would like to see an extension being agreed upon by the parties, but we would also like to see that the government is committed politically and resources-wise, so that we implement the activities in the agreement,” senior SPLM-IO member Kang Pal Chol told AFP news agency.
“For now we believe we will reach a consensus,” he said, adding that Machar would attend the meeting in Addis Ababa.
Kiir’s spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said the president would be represented by members of his negotiating team.
South Sudan’s war broke out two years after independence from Sudan, after Kiir accused his former vice president Machar of plotting a coup against him.
An August 2015 peace deal collapsed almost a year after it was signed and the conflict spread, drawing in more groups around the country.
The fighting has killed around 380,000 people and forced more than four million South Sudanese – almost a third of the population – to flee their homes.
While the latest peace deal largely stopped fighting, violence has continued in some regions with rebel groups who did not sign up to it.
