No progress on South Sudan peace -UN's powerful body

The United Nations Security Council said on Friday that the parties to the peace deal in South Sudan have not made substantive progress on implementation of critical tasks.

The parties had failed to resolve several outstanding issues since the revitalized peace deal was signed in September last year. As a result, President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar on November 7 agreed again to delay key benchmarks in the agreement by 100 days.

Key critical tasks of the pre-transitional period of the peace agreement have yet to be implemented, including transitional security arrangements and determination of the number and boundaries of states.

 In a statement extended to Radio Tamazuj, the members of the United Nations Security Council expressed concern that parties to the peace agreement have not achieved anything substantive in the implementation process.

The council called on the parties to make immediate progress on these tasks and on outcomes agreed at the 9 November 2019 “IGAD Ministerial Consultative Meeting with the parties to the peace deal,” including for SSPDF and SPLA-IO forces to immediately vacate all remaining civilian centers and populated areas.

The UN’s most powerful body threated sanctions against those who threaten the peace, security, or stability of South Sudan.

The council welcomed the agreement for the guarantors and the parties to establish a mechanism to supervise the implementation of critical tasks.

It called on the guarantors and parties to the peace agreement to quickly operationalize the mechanism and set out clearly how it will operate in coordination with the existing mechanisms and institutions of the agreement, as well as stakeholders to the South Sudan peace process.

The council also called upon the government of South Sudan to disburse the balance of its pledged funds for implementation of the peace deal in a transparent and accountable manner and to continue to make funds available for ongoing implementation of the peace agreement.

“The members of the Security Council urged parties to the Agreement to continue taking steps in line with the provisions of the Agreement to promote the full, effective, and meaningful participation of women in the formation of the RTGoNU,” the statement reads in part.

The council further said it took note of the call by the AU Peace and Security Council upon the government of South Sudan to expeditiously work towards the operationalization of all transitional justice mechanisms, including the Hybrid Court for South Sudan.