Sudan to facilitate Kiir-Machar meeting in Juba

JUBA – President Salva Kiir’s advisor on security affairs and chairperson of the National Transitional Committee has announced that they will hold a meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, and later in Juba with all parties to the 2018 peace agreement to discuss the unification of forces as per the deal, Radio Tamazuj reports.

Tut Gatluak Manime was addressing a press conference after meeting with the Vice President of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, in Khartoum on Monday.

He arrived in Khartoum last weekend to deliver President Kiir’s response to the proposal by the President of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, regarding the unification of forces.

Gatluak said the government had already responded to the proposal and he has handed it over to the government in Sudan, a guarantor of the peace deal.

According to the official Sudan News Agency, SUNA, Hamdan Dagalo made a phone call to President Salva Kiir on Monday, during which they discussed the progress of implementing the peace agreement.

SUNA reports that President Kiir assured Dagalo of his commitment to overcoming challenges facing the implementation of the agreement.

Last Friday, President Kiir issued a presidential decree in which he relinquished three positions of command in the military and two in the National Police Service to the SPLM/A-IO and SSSOA, a move immediately disputed by the SPLM/A-IO as unilateral and against the peace agreement.

Tensions have been rising between the two main parties to the agreement, as implementation stalls.