The South Sudan Opposition Alliance is scheduled to meet in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on Friday ahead of a joint consultation at the upcoming peace deal revitalization by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Saturday.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday, a member of the alliance and leader of the Federal Democratic Party, Gabriel Changson said the members of the alliance will travel to Addis on Thursday.
“Some of our members are coming from Nairobi, Khartoum and the United States of America for the consultations. We travel tomorrow (Thursday) so that on Friday we meet and put our house in order as an alliance and on Saturday we meet IGAD,” he said.
Changson said they are yet to receive an official request from the newly formed South Sudan United Front of ex-army chief Paul Malong who while declaring his movement announced his intention to join the opposition alliance at the talks in Addis.
“If we receive an official request, the leadership of the alliance will then sit and review and make a decision on it. And this is not just for him, but any other new opposition group will go through the same because any the opposition’s charter spells out clearly the admission of parties,” he added.
The alliance is made up nine rebel groups including the Federal Democratic Party, National Salvation Front, South Sudan’s National Democratic Movement, South Sudan Patriotic Movement, and South Sudan United Movement, and Pagan Amum, leader of SPLM-FDs.
The IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan and other officials have already met with civil society stakeholders and are scheduled to meet the opposition alliance on Saturday and government officials in Juba on Sunday for consultations on key outstanding issues at the 2nd phase of the of the High-Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) to reconvene on 26th March 2016.