South Sudan invited to Sudan’s peace review conference
January 21, 2023 (KHARTOUM/JUBA) – The signatories to the Political Framework Agreement invited the Government of South Sudan to participate in a conference to review the peace agreement, reiterating their commitment to the pact.
President Salva Kiir received on Friday with Sovereign Council member and Sudanese Revolutionary Front leader Hadi Idris, who briefed him on Sudan’s political process and the purpose of reviewing the Juba peace agreement as part of efforts to restore transitional civilian rule and end the coup.
According to a statement issued by the Sovereign Council, the meeting discussed issues related to the peace agreement and the framework political agreement. For its part, the SRF official spokesman Osama Saeed stressed that the evaluation and review of the peace deal would be through the mechanisms stipulated in the agreement.
Speaking to Sudan Tribune in Juba, Idris revealed that the meeting aimed to brief President Salva Kiir, sponsor and guarantor of the Juba Agreement, about the framework agreement’s outcome, which includes reviewing the peace agreement.
“In particular, we extended an invitation for South Sudan to participate in the conference on reviewing the Juba agreement within the framework of the political process. The invitation was decided by all signatories to the framework agreement,” he added.
“The framework agreement will not cancel the peace process a, but rather strengthen it and ensure its implementation,” he stressed.
Some signatories of the Juba peace agreement reject the ongoing political process and accuse the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) of seeking to amend the peace pact to exclude them from power as the process would lead to forming a technocratic transitional cabinet.
The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) Minni Minnawi (SLM-MM) are the two groups that reject the political process.
On December 14, 2022, Minnawi met with President Salva Kiir to discuss the non-implementation of the peace agreement and the review of the peace agreement. The guarantor of the peace agreement directed his government, to hold a workshop in mid-January to assess the peace implementation in order to set a new matrix for its enforcement.
Khalid Omer Youssif, Political Process Spokesman announced on January 19 an agreement between the signatories of the framework agreement and the tripartite facilitation mechanism to hold conferences on peace and eastern Sudan before the end of January.
In a related development, Sudan Tribune learned that a three-day workshop on the Juba agreement peace will be held on January 27.
“The signatories of the Political Framework Agreement decided to extend an invitation to all parties to the peace agreement, including the SLM leader Minni Minnawi, and JEM leader Jibril Ibrahim, as well as other stakeholders.
He noted that the workshop on the situation in eastern Sudan is scheduled to be held after the workshop on the review of the peace agreement.
“The invitation for the East conference will be extended to all the components of the region, including the Al-Handandawa tribal leader, Mohamed Terik,” he added.
(ST)