South Sudan Government, opposition to resume Rome talks:

JUBA/NAIROBI

 South Sudan’s government and holdout opposition groups on Monday announced that political talks will resume in Rome, Italy, next week.

Aimed at working towards all-inclusive peace in the world’s youngest country, the peace talks are being mediated by the Rome-based lay Catholic association, Sant’Egidio.

In November last year, the Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) in Juba suspended the talks with the Non-Signatories South Sudanese Opposition Group (NSSSOG) after accusing the opposition of lacking commitment and preparing for war.

However, President Salva Kiir renewed his commitment to the talks with the opposition group after Pope Francis’s visit to Juba last month.

Negotiations between both sides began in 2019 but have failed to stop violence in some parts of the country, despite a ceasefire signed in January 2020.

The President’s press secretary, Lily Adieu Martin Manyiel, told Radio Tamazuj that the government delegation had received an invitation for the talks in Rome next week.

For his part, the leader of the South Sudan United Front/Army (SSUF/A), Gen. Paul Malong Awan, confirmed to Radio Tamazuj that the holdout opposition group had received an invitation to resume peace negotiations with the transitional government.

Malong’s SSUF/A is a founding member of the Non-Signatories South Sudanese Opposition Group,which brings together some of the opposition parties that had declined to be part of the revitalized peace agreement that was signed in September 2018.