Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom and Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed visited South Sudan’s capital Juba recently and met President Salva Kiir in a bid to halt fighting in the young country.
According to a diplomatic source, the meeting reportedly focused on the mediation by IGAD, a regional bloc which had led peace talks for more than a year until negotiations fell apart in March of this year, Anadolu Agency reported. According to the diplomatic source, the two neighbouring countries are exerting maximum efforts to prevent the total collapse of the peace negotiations between the government and the opposition group.
IGAD failed to call for a round of talks scheduled to take place in last April, according to the source.
The same source said the meeting which brought together two Foreign Affairs Ministers of Kenya, Ethiopia and President Kiir in the presence of South Sudan Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin focused on the prospect of discussing the ongoing conflict in South Sudan at an extraordinary summit in Johannesburg, South Africa on the sidelines of the African Summit which will be held on 14 June.
Kenya urges greater G10 role
Meanwhile, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta recently met with members of the SPLM-G10, a group of former political prisoners who were leading members of the SPLM party and are participating as a third group in the negotiations between President Salva Kiir’s SPLM and former vice president Riek Machar’s SPLM-In Opposition.
Kenyatta said that the G10 should play an increased role in the peace talks and that the IGAD process should merge with a parallel set of talks between the three SPLM factions which has been taking place in Arusha, Tanzania.
Photo: Kenya’s foreign minister Amina Mohamed