IGAD extends South Sudan peace talks until 19 August
August 10, 2018 (KHARTOUM) – The IGAD Council of Ministers Thursday has adopted an implementation matrix and decided that the Khartoum round of talks will continue until the 19 August.
The 64th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Council of Ministers took place in Khartoum on the 9th of August 2018 to discuss issues “that should be dealt with to prepare a full document of a Comprehensive Revitalized ARCSS”
In a statement released after the meeting from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian government which chairs the IGAD said the meeting agreed on a “draft matrix prepared by the IGAD Special Envoy for S Sudan, Amb Ismail Wais on the way forward in dealing with remaining items”.
It further said the IGAD Council agreed that the “the mediation effort will continue in Khartoum till the 19th of August. 2018”, but it didn’t give a date for the signing ceremony or a meeting of the IGAD leaders.
In addition to the IGAD members, the meeting was attended by the AU, the UN, EU, IPF, China and Troika which was represented by the British Minister of State for Africa Harriet Baldwin who is visiting Sudan nowadays.
The meeting was chaired by the Ethiopian State Minister of Foreign Affairs Hirut Zemene, who also met with the Sudanese First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh to brief him about the extension of his mandate as guarantor of the peace talks.
(ST)