March 12th 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s former army chief turned rebel leader, Gen. Paul Malong Awan, has agreed to participate in the peace process in South Sudan and to engage the government of President Salva Kiir Mayardiit over its implementation, a joint communique issued on Tuesday said.
The IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan, Ambassador Ismail Wais, met Malong in the Kenyan capital Nairobi from Monday, March 11th to Tuesday, March 12th over the peace implementation.
The government of President Salva Kiir Mayardiit in September last year signed a revitalized version of a 2015 peace agreement with opposition groups in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The agreement was signed months following intense negotiations in the Sudanese capital Khartoum by delegates who then had until a August 5th 2018 dateline.
In a communique issued on Tuesday following the meeting, the IGAD Special Envoy to the war-ravaged country said Malong agreed to engage the government in a negotiation to be facilitated by the IGAD.
The communique partly said that Malong agreed to “engage in the peace process through negotiations with the Government of South Sudan to be facilitated by the IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan.”