19th June, 2018
President Salva Kiir of South Sudan will meet his rival and former vice president Riek Machar in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, as part of talks to negotiate an end to a civil war that broke out in 2013, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said.
“The meeting on South Sudan will be held under the auspices of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed with the aim of bridging gaps between President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar,” the ministry statement said.The ministry said that Machar is expected to arrive in Ethiopia’s capital on Wednesday from South Africa.
South Sudan government on Monday rejected the proposed venue for the Kiir and Machar face-to-face talks.
The Information Minister and government spokesperson, Michael Makuei, said the historic meeting can only take place in a neutral country.
The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had slated the meeting for June 20 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“There are competing interests among Igad member states such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya,” Makuei said.
The three countries had offered to host the Kiir-Machar meeting.
“It seems that there is some sort of undeclared competition,” he told the media in Juba.
Makuei said President Kiir would rather travel to South Africa to meet Machar.
“The best thing is to hold it in a neutral ground, so that none of these three countries take it for anything other than a neutral place,” Makuei said in response to the IGAD invitation.
Machar has been under house arrest in South Africa since November 2016.
On June 14, his faction expressed readiness of their leader to attend the talks in Addis Ababa.