Warring South Sudan leaders have signed a new power sharing agreement after several other failed agreements.
It is hoped that this new deal will bring an end to the civil war that has ravaged the youngest country in the world, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions more.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar signed the power sharing deal on Sunday in Sudan. Under this new deal the rebel leader is set to return to a unity government as the first of five vice presidents.
The deal is also supposed to pave the way to a final peace accord and was signed in the presence of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his counterparts from Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti, as well as other foreign dignitaries.
Once a final peace deal is signed, the warring parties will have three months to form a transitional government under the new format, which will then take effect for a further 36 months.
The warring parties had signed a similar arrangement that fell apart in July 2016 when fighting erupted in the capital, Juba, and Machar fled the country.
According to Kiir the South Sudan President,
“The agreement we have signed today must map the road to end the conflict and war in our country. We have to concentrate on the implementation of the agreement and we have to work on uniting our people.”
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Also reacting to the new deal, South Sudan rebel leader Machar urged the regional east African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which is pushing the latest peace talks, to ensure that the deal is implemented.
“I want IGAD to focus on the implementation of the deal because devil lies always in the implementation,” he said
The talks come as part of a regional push aimed at achieving peace in the country, which was plunged into a civil war two years after its independence from Sudan.