President Salva Kiir and SPLM/A-IO leader Riek Machar are scheduled to meet on Friday in Addis Ababa at the invitation of the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

Last week the US foreign secretary John Kerry and the Ethiopian leader planned the meeting jointly, and Kerry met with Kiir in Juba to urge him to accept the invitation.

He announced after meeting Kiir on Friday that the meeting would take place “in the near term, sometime early next week hopefully.”

In an interview with Radio Tamazuj today, South Sudan’s information minister Michael Makuei said the Ethiopian prime minister wrote a letter to the South Sudanese president to arrange the meeting.

The spokesman reiterated Salva Kiir’s willingness to meet with Riek Machar “in any place, at any time.”

For his part, the spokesman of the opposition delegation Hussein Mar likewise confirmed also receiving a letter from Prime Minister Hailemariam inviting Riek Machar to a meeting with Salva Kiir.

“But we don’t know when he will come,” said Mar, saying arrangements for the rebel leader’s travel still had to be made.

The rebel spokesman also mentioned that the meeting with Kiir was only one of several proposed meetings including ones with the Ethiopian government and diplomats of other nations.

According to remarks made by the top US diplomat John Kerry last Friday the meeting between Kiir and Riek is ‘critical’ to getting the parties to engage seriously on implementation of the ceasefire.

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