No Deal between Kiir, Machar in Addis Ababa

Peace talks between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar ended without an agreement in Addis Ababa, but they may meet again, possibly as early as next week in Khartoum.

South Sudan Information Minister Michael Makuei, who returned to Juba from Addis on Friday, told reporters that the IGAD Council of Ministers had declared the high-level forum to be over.

He said leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development had urged Kiir and Machar to continue negotiating on the areas of disagreement and meet in Sudan’s capital next week, with future talks possibly to be held in Nairobi.

“The IGAD summit decided that all the provisions that are agreed should be separated from the provisions which are not yet agreed, and that the imposition of any agreement on any party is not a solution to the problem of South Sudan,” said Makuei.

Representatives for both Kiir and Machar confirmed that no agreements were reached in their meeting Wednesday in Addis.

The two men are at the center of a civil war that broke out in late 2013 and has displaced more than 4 million South Sudanese.

Some regional leaders also expressed frustration with IGAD. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, who hosted the Kiir-Machar meeting this week, posted Friday on his twitter account, “The crisis in South Sudan has grown to become a crisis in each of our respective countries in the region. Our vital national security interests are at stake. We need to act and act now.”

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