NAS rebels renew calls for inclusive peace talks in South Sudan

May 15, 2019 (JUBA) – The holdout National Salvation Front (NAS) Wednesday renewed calls for an inclusive process instead of injunctions to join the revitalized peace agreement which it has refused to sign.

The non-signatory group which fights the South Sudanese army in the Equatoria region held several meetings with the IGAD mediation team but the latter refuses to open the agreement for negotiations. The mediators say ready to only discuss the modality of rejoining the R-ARCSS and the peace process.

Recently, the IGAD Council of Ministers endorsed the extension of the pre-transitional period for six months and called on the non-signatory groups to join the deal.

“The National Salvation Front believes that genuine peace can only be achieved through an inclusive negotiation process rather than calling on the none signatory parties to urgently join a peace agreement that does not address the root causes of the conflict in the country,” said NAS spokesperson Suba Samuel Manase in a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.

Manase regretted the regular “ultimatum, deadlines and veiled threats” the mediation issues to force them to join the revitalized peace agreement.

Also, he repeated their readiness to “engage in any genuinely peaceful political process that intends to address the root causes of the conflicts in South Sudan”.

One of the issues that complicate progress in this regard that the mediation refused earlier his year to include in the peace process the South Sudan National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella gathering NAS and its allies of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) that rejected the peace agreement.

(ST)