Mar 26th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s government reiterated its rejection to work with the former first vice president Riek Machar in a Kiir-Machar cabinet citing previous disagreements between the two.
Speaking to the South Sudan’s state-owned SSBC, Nhial Deng Nhial, the government’s Chief Negotiator said the government cannot again accommodate the rebel leader in a shared cabinet because it would reproduce the same crises of 2013 and 2016.
“We have made it very clear that the painful experience of 2013 and 2016 cannot be repeated. Nothing has changed in terms of the relationship between President Salva Kiir and the former first vice president Riek Machar to convince us that if we repeat that experiment it would not end in the same way,” he said.
Nhial also deplored the effect of having two armies in the country saying “We are no longer ready to have people being exposed to danger in the streets of our country. We know what two armies have done,” he added during an interview with the state-owned South Sudan TV.
Nhial blamed the U.S. sanctions for instigating intransigence from the side of the opposition and has also accused the opposition coalition in the peace talks of making unreasonable demands to derail the peace process intentionally saying “We did not go to Addis Ababa in order to be persuaded that president Salva Kiir steps down and Riek Machar comes in.
One of the conditions the opposition has made is that it is either President Salva Kiir accept to work with Riek Machar or both of them “must go” but Nhial regrets that “these are not reasonable demands”.
The IGAD suspended indefinitely the High Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) after the government and the opposition failed to agree on certain provisions of the ARCISS but peace talks are expected to resume in early April.
