S. Sudan Kiir, Machar meet for peace talks

Eritrea sending delegation to Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, June 21, (Agencies): South Sudan’s president and rebel leader met on Wednesday for the first time since 2016, when a peace deal collapsed and fighting reerupted between their forces, the Ethiopian prime minister’s chief of staff said.

“The PM Abiy Ahmed hosted a private dinner to President Salva Kiir & Dr Rieck Machar together,” Fitsum Arega said on his Twitter account.

“Faced with the continued suffering in South Sudan, Ethiopia simply can’t stand by. With more work, a peaceful future is possible.”

The meeting had been billed by Ethiopia’s government a step towards ending a five-year-old civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than three million to flee their homes in the world’s youngest country.

The oil-producing nation gained independence in 2011 from north Sudan but fighting broke out two years later.

Kiir and Machar met individually with Abiy before the three sat down together, South Sudanese opposition party officials and Western diplomats said.

The Ethiopian government has been a key actor in the regional bloc IGAD’s faltering peace process for South Sudan.

A ceasefire the warring sides signed in the Ethiopian capital in December was violated hours later.

“This is a last-ditch attempt but a serious one to broker a deal,” said Alan Boswell, an independent researcher on South Sudan.

“The concern is that it’s not at all obvious how they will prevent the catastrophe of 2016 from recurring, since the framework for the deal is not substantially different than it was in the 2015 deal.”

Eritrea’s president announced Wednesday he is sending a rare delegation to neighboring Ethiopia for peace talks, days after Ethiopia’s new prime minister took a major step toward calming deadly tensions with its decades-long rival.

This is the first such delegation since 1998, when a border war erupted between the countries and they cut off diplomatic relations.

Eritrea’s longtime President Isaias Afwerki noted “positive signals” in recent days from Ethiopia and said the delegation will “gauge current developments directly and in depth” to plan future steps. He spoke during a Martyrs Day celebration in the capital, Asmara.

Ethiopia early this month made the surprise announcement that it will fully accept the terms of a peace agreement with Eritrea signed in 2000 to end the two-year border war that killed tens of thousands. The countries have skirmished a number of times since then. Ethiopia had refused to accept the deal’s handing to Eritrea of key locations, including the town of Badme, which it still holds.

The decision to fully accept the peace deal was the biggest reform yet announced by Ethiopia’s young new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who once fought in Badme. “The suffering on both sides is unspeakable because the peace process is deadlocked. This must change for the sake of our common good,” Abiy’s chief of staff, Fitsum Arega, said at the time.

Eritrea shortly after the announcement replied that it had always accepted the peace deal.