S. Sudanese rebel leader meets Kenyan president in Nairobi

June 22, 2015 (NAIROBI) – South Sudan’s former vice-president, turned armed opposition leader, Riek Machar, has arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and held talks with president Uhuru Kenyatta at the State House on Monday.

The leader of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO), according to his officials, arrived in Nairobi on Saturday from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he also held talks with a number of African and world leaders on the sidelines of the last week’s African Union’s summit of heads of state and government.

“He arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Saturday. On Monday he met with president Uhuru Kenyatta of the Republic of Kenya. The discussions centred on the South Sudan’s peace process and how best to achieve it,” Machar’s spokesman, James Gatdet Dak, told Sudan Tribune when contacted on Monday evening.

President Kenyatta is the rapporteur in the East African regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is chaired by the Ethiopian prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn.

Dak said the top armed opposition leader on Monday also had consultative meetings with senior officials of the movement in Nairobi on issues of concern in promoting the peace process.

Back in Johannesburg, he said the armed opposition leader had fruitful engagement with African leaders, adding that he also distributed to the African Union’s heads of state and government the movement’s position paper on the peace process.

The rebel leader’s spokesman added that their movement was committed to the IGAD-led peace process that would now involve a number of countries and bodies beyond the African continent.

He also said there was need to address the root causes of the conflict in order to achieve a negotiated meaningful peace agreement that will ensure no future return to similar differences and crisis in the country.

(ST)