US at odds with S. Sudan leader over peace deal

KHARTOUM/WASHINGTON. – South Sudan’s major rebel group, led by former vice-president Riek Machar, and secretary-general of the ruling party Pagan Amum on Monday signed a peace deal in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while President Salva Kiir refused to sign. “South Sudan President Salva Kiir failed to sign the peace deal,” Seyoum Mesfin, chief mediator of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development in Africa (IGAD), was reported to have told the Press in Addis Ababa on Monday.

He explained that South Sudan government had reservations, pointing out that President Kiir asked for two weeks delay.

A mediator said they had “certain reservations” and would return within 15 days after consultations.

“In the next 15 days, the South Sudan government will come back to Addis Ababa to finalise the peace agreement,” Mesfin said.

The South Sudanese government and rebels have recently resumed peace talks in Addis Ababa after the mediators availed them until August 17 to sign a peace deal to end the violent clash in the newly-born state.

Despite many previous rounds of talks under IGAD’s patronage, the two South Sudanese rivals have failed to reach a peace deal.

South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013 when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes have left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.9 million people to flee their homes.

Meanwhile, the United States urged South Sudan’s president on Monday to sign a peace deal with rebels within two weeks to end 20 months of brutal civil war: “The United States deeply regrets that the government of South Sudan chose not to sign an agreement that was supported by all of the states in the IGAD plus the troika – the United States, United Kingdom and Norway, China, the African Union and the United Nations today,” said US State Department spo0kesperson John Kirby.

“We call on the government to sign the agreement within the 15-day period it requested for consultations.”

President Kiir had warned from the start of talks that it would be impossible to sign a credible peace deal because rebel forces have split.

The regional eight-nation bloc IGAD, as well as the United Nations, AU, China and the “troika” of Britain, Norway and the United States mediated the talks for 10 days.

“As the president has stated, if there was no agreement signed today, we consider -we would consider ways to raise the cost for intransigence,” Kirby said.

He added that Washington would “work with our regional and international partners on next steps and on ways to increase pressure, especially against those that are undermining the peace process or opposing this agree- ment”.

At least seven ceasefires have already been agreed to and then shattered within days, if not hours, in the world’s newest country, which broke away from Sudan in 2011.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama pressured President Kiir and Machar to reach a deal by Monday, and Washington has repeatedly called for an end to the fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people.

But so far, the threat of sanctions, an arms embargo, travel bans or the freezing of assets have not had any effect. – Xinhua/AFP.