South Sudan's president
and the country's rebel chief were locked in a second day of talks on
Friday, under pressure from regional leaders to end their nearly
11-month-old civil war.
President Salva Kiir and ousted vice
president Riek Machar were meeting in Addis Ababa, with Ethiopian Prime
Minister Hailemariam Desalgen and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta
leading the latest push for peace. East African leaders have grown
increasingly impatient with the warring sides, their slow-moving talks
and repeated violations of several prior ceasefire deals, and have told
them to "come to their senses".
The UN Security Council also
warned this week of possible sanctions over the fighting, which has left
tens of thousands dead and forced almost two million from their homes.
"It
is a delicate place in which we are but we expect a result, a positive
result," Kenya's foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, said in a brief
statement. Kenyan diplomats said Kiir, Machar and regional
mediators met for more than 12 hours on Thursday, and that talks had
resumed behind closed doors on Friday. Diplomats trying to broker a
peace deal appear to be jaded by the process, and on Thursday the
Ethiopian prime minister complained that there "appears to be little
appetite for peace". "That the patience of the international community is wearing thin is hopefully not lost on both sides," Hailemariam said.
War
broke out in December last year, when Kiir accused his sacked deputy
Machar of trying to stage a coup, with the violence broadening into an
ethnic conflict and now including more than 20 different armed groups. Kiir
and Machar met last month in Tanzania, shaking hands and accepting
mutual responsibility for the war, which has been marked by widespread
human rights abuses and atrocities by both sides. It was their first meeting since they signed a ceasefire in August, which, like three previous agreements, swiftly collapsed. Recent
weeks have seen an upsurge in fighting coinciding with the end of the
rainy season, and there have been heavy clashes in several areas - in
particular around the northern oil hub of Bentiu.
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