South Sudan’s rebels hope a new peace plan by the East African regional bloc IGAD on Tuesday can help narrow differences on outstanding issues.
Angelina Teny, the wife of South Sudan’s opposition leader Riek Machar, said from the venue of the peace talks in Addis Ababa on Monday evening that her group is waiting to see the new draft peace proposal from the regional mediation.
“The IGAD Council of Ministers has decided that they will serve us with a proposal tomorrow, so we want to see that proposal and we hope it would take a lot of issues and close the gap,” Angelina said.
“We hope to have less outstanding issues to tackle,” she added.
Angelina, who is also the head of the SPLM-IO movement’s committee for security and defense, said a significant progress has been made on security arrangements.
“What is remaining is the scope of cantonment and that is an area that we also agreed we continue to discuss,” she said.
The opposition official emphasized the importance of transitional security arrangements that ensure lasting peace in South Sudan.
“That’s why as a party we are proposing a total cantonment of all forces so that we do not go back to 2016 incidents. We need at least 12 months to rollout the first police,” she said.