Kiir-Machar meeting to be attended by Ethiopian PM

June 7, 2018 (KHARTOUM) – South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his main rival Riek Machar will meet in Khartoum in the third week of June in presence of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who is also the IGAD chair.

The meeting which will be held within the IGAD efforts to settle the four-and-half-year-old conflict comes as President Kiir and former First Vice-President Machar said ready to meet each other.

Sudanese officials told Sudan Tribune under the cover of anonymity that the face-to-face meeting will take place on 17 June.

He further said the meeting will be attended by the Ethiopian Premier, adding that a second encounter will be held in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott on the sidelines of the African Union summit.

The IGAD Council of Ministers on 31 May recommended convening an extraordinary meeting for the IGAD head of states and government and a face-to-face meeting between Kiir and Machar before the AU summit in Mauritania to on 1 and 2 July.

The face-to-face meeting comes as the mediation team in parallel will continue to its consultations with all the parties to identify possible compromises and build consensus among them.

The mediation suspended the second phase of the peace revitalization forum as the opposition groups rejected the Bridging Proposal despite the important positions offered to them in the transitional government. They said the text concedes to Juba on different issues and endorsed the status quo which emerged after the collapse of peace implementation process.

(ST)