JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Peace talks in South Sudan, previously held in neighboring Kenya, will resume under a directive from President Salva Kiir and his Kenyan counterpart, William Ruto, who met Wednesday and announced instructed the mediation team to reconvene and resolve all outstanding issues. problems within two weeks.
The talks had stalled after Kiir’s former rival, Riek Machar’s party, withdrew in July, citing mediators’ plans to replace the 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people died.
While the 2018 peace agreement has yet to be fully implemented, South Sudan has postponed elections scheduled for December 2023 to 2025 to establish key electoral processes outlined in the agreement.
The Tumaini Initiative peace talks, underway in Kenya since May, aimed to lay a foundation for the inclusion of non-signatory groups to maintain peace in the East African country plagued by civil war and ethnic violence . However, participants raised concerns about a new security law that would allow the government to detain people without warrants.
The law was criticized by Western envoys and human rights groups, who feared it could be abused in the country’s fragile political and legal environment.
South Sudan is experiencing an economic crisis that has left civil servants unpaid for almost a year after oil exports were disrupted by a damaged pipeline in war-torn neighboring Sudan.
