Ambassador Seyoum Mesfin, the chairman of the IGAD Special Envoys for South Sudan, addressed the resumption of the multi-stakeholder negotiations today at the Nile Conference Centre in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
Delegations of the South Sudanese parties have been in consultations for a week now but today marks the opening of the negotiations in ‘multi-stakeholder’ format.
“There is a way forward,” the mediator said, urging the parties to discuss a new proposal provided to them on Saturday night.
Mesfin, the former foreign minister of Ethiopia, urged the South Sudanese negotiators to discuss the new proposal, the text of which has not yet been made public. He called the document “the starting point for this round of talks.”
IGAD mediators say the new document “incorporates” the Protocol on Principles on Transitional Arrangements while also accommodating objections to the Protocol.
Salva Kiir last month accepted the Protocol while leaders of other factions rejected it. The document was reportedly prepared by the IGAD mediation team but changed at the last minute by the IGAD Heads of State.
According to a written version of Mesfin’s address today, the mediator downplayed the status of the Protocol saying, “The approach of the mediation is to draw on the guiding principles provided by the Protocol endorsed by the IGAD Heads of State and Government on 25 August 2014, while recognizing that the Protocol is not in itself a final agreement.”
“It is a roadmap of principles guiding the South Sudan stakeholders toward a negotiated agreement,” he said.
IGAD’s mediation team has been seeking to keep the parties at the negotiating table following fighting last week, which they condemned in a statement on Saturday evening.
The ambassador cautioned, “If you are looking for fish, do not climb a tree. If you are committed to peace, you will not find it through the barrel of the gun, but around this table.
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