Gatwech ‘won’t accept’ to have talks with Kiir moved to Juba  

JUBA – South Sudan main armed opposition commander and leader of the SPLM-IO Kitgwang faction, General Simon Gatwech Dual, will never accept moving talks to South Sudan’s capital Juba on pretext that the situation in Sudan is not good for conduct of peace talks, a senior opposition official and media aide of the controversial opposition commander has said.

Last week, Presidential Advisor on security affairs Tutkew Gatluak Manimeh told Sudans Post in Khartoum that the president was seeking to move talks to Juba because of the situation that unfolded in Sudan following the October 25 declaration of state of emergency and dissolution of the coalition government by the military.

“We are not in Sudan to continue the talks with the group of Gatwech and Gen. Johnson Olony. We are here for the Sudanese parties to talk to them and to end their dispute,” Gatluak said while in the Sudanese capital Khartoum last week.

“Nevertheless, we are also going to meet with the group of Gen. Gatwech and Gen. Olony because there is a proposal from the President of the State of South Sudan 1st Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit that these talks with the two generals be moved to Juba because here is not stable. I mean the security situation here,” he added.

But speaking to Sudans Post exclusively in Khartoum, James Kalany Mamuon, the Press Secretary in the Office of SPLM-IO Kitgwang chairman and commander in chief General Gatwech Dual said they met Tutkew in Khartoum over the weekend and they weren’t informed about the government intention to move talks to Juba and they won’t accept it either.

“Well we met Hon. Tutkew when he came to Khartoum; we discussed the start of the negotiation and they he didn’t informed us about that plan. But what we stand for is that Sudan is the seat of the [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] and any plans to have talks moved away from here won’t be accepted by the SPLM/SPLA (IO),” he said.