South Sudan Leaders Agree to a Delay in Peace Pact Deadline
South Sudan Leaders Agree 100-Day Delay in Peace Pact Deadline
South Sudan’s leaders agreed to delay the deadline for a peace agreement by 100 days to give more time to meet conditions for forming a unity government.
President Salva Kiir and main rebel leader Riek Machar held talks Thursday in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, as the Nov. 12 deadline approached. The discussions also included leaders from neighboring Sudan and Uganda.
The agreement is key to hopes of rebuilding the East African nation’s oil industry and shattered economy after a five-year civil war.
“The meeting noted the incomplete critical tasks related to the security arrangements and governance, including the formation of a revitalized transitional government of national unity,” according to a statement from the Ugandan government posted on the Twitter account of Don Wanyama, spokesman for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
The parties will review progress after 50 days and report back to the group.
A power-sharing government was supposed to be led by Kiir with Machar as deputy as part of a deal signed last year to usher the country into democratic elections and development. The world’s youngest country has been mired since late 2013 in a conflict that’s claimed almost 400,000 lives, forced 4 million others from their homes and caused an economic crisis.
A previous agreement to end the conflict collapsed weeks after it was enacted in 2016.
To contact the reporters on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net;Okech Francis in Juba at fokech@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Ana Monteiro
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