SOUTH SUDAN: Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin says a delegation of negotiators appointed by President Salva Kiir has already been appointed to travel to Ethiopia peace talks with rebels after agreeing a ceasefire

Record ID: 349814

  • Title: SOUTH SUDAN: Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin says a delegation of negotiators appointed by President Salva Kiir has already been appointed to travel to Ethiopia peace talks with rebels after agreeing a ceasefire
  • Date: 31st December 2013
  • Summary: JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (DECEMBER 31, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SOUTH SUDAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, DR BARANABA MARIAL BENJAMIN, IN HIS OFFICE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTH SUDAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, DR BARANABA MARIAL BENJAMIN, SAYING: "The president had already formed his negotiating team, his dialogue team since 48 hours ago and this team now is ready to go this aftern
  • Embargoed: 15th January 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Sudan
  • Country: South Sudan
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA7DRGI46196Z5KHT6VAFD2JDGJ
  • Story Text: South Sudan's government was preparing to send a presidentially-appointed delegation of negotiators to Ethiopia on Tuesday (December 31) the country's foreign minister said, for peace talks with rebels, after mediators said a ceasefire was signed between the two sides.
    Despite efforts to stem the violence in the world's youngest nation, there was no immediate confirmation from either side of the ceasefire, or a sign of an end to ethnic fighting that has ravaged the country.
    Militias loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar fought their way on Tuesday morning into the centre of Bor, the main town in the vast, underdeveloped Jonglei state and the site of an ethnic massacre in 1991, witnesses said.
    South Sudan's Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said his government was sending a team to Ethiopia's capital city, where talks between the two sides were expected to start.

    "The president had already formed his negotiating team, his dialogue team since 48 hours ago and this team now is ready to go this afternoon to Addis Ababa," he said.

    "So we are for dialogue, unconditional dialogue, without any conditions. It was the other side putting conditions and refusing to send a team of their own, they were refusing equally for the cessation of hostilities," he told Reuters Television.

    "The President has been on record and he said we don't want the people of South Sudan to die again in the senseless war," he added.
    Regional leaders had given December 31 as ultimatum to start talk's failure to which they would act.
    They had not said how they would act but Ugandans President Yoweri Museveni said on Monday (December 30) regional leaders had agreed to defeat the rebels if they did not agree to peace talks.
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