South Sudan peace talks postponed amid rebel threats

"We are abstaining from participating in the next round of peace talks," Taban Deng, head of the opposition delegation, said in a statement.

Deng demanded the release of four detainees who remain in prison following the release of seven of their colleagues in late January.

He also called for the immediate withdrawal of Ugandan troops, who have been in the country at the request of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir since the conflict erupted on December 15.

Fear of regional conflict

The demand was echoed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Sudan, warning of a threat of regional conflict.

South Sudanese internally displaced people wait to be registered at Mingkaman's temporary camp,  …

"Because of this intervention, the conflict might end up as a regional conflict because there are other interests also from other sides," Hailemariam told reporters.

"I hope for the cessation of hostilities. ... Ugandan forces and all other external forces must withdraw from that area phase by phase," he said.

Peace delegates loyal to Kiir and supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar, a former vice president, signed a ceasefire on January 23, although fighting has continued in the oil-rich but impoverished country, which won independence from Khartoum in 2011.

The conflict, which started in the capital Juba and spread rapidly to different parts of South Sudan, has left thousands dead since mid-December and has caused nearly 900,000 to flee their homes.

It has also had a tribal dimension, with the two largest ethnic communities, the Dinka, to which Kiir belongs, and Machar's group the Nuer both carrying out ethnic massacres.

Soldiers stand next to South Sudanese displaced people waiting on a boat at Mingkaman's temporar …

Eleven South Sudanese political figures were arrested in Juba when the fighting broke out. Seven of them were freed at the end of January and are set to take part in the new negotiations, according to IGAD, the regional grouping that is helping mediate the talks.

The government side wants to try the four who are still detained, along with two other political figures -- including Machar himself -- who are on the run.

During the two-week break in talks IGAD said its mediators briefed the heads of state of member countries, and that the first IGAD officials tasked with monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire were also deployed.

Analysts warned against over-optimism on the talks.

"The negotiations are a stopgap measure at best: the institutional deficiences that have brought about the violence remain," wrote Peter Biar Ajak, director of the Center for Strategic Analysis and Research in Juba.

"For its (own) sake and the sake of this young country, the political leadership of South Sudan must complete the task it aborted of building basic institutions of governance," Ajak said in an op-ed in the International New York Times last week.

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• South Sudan

Source http://news.yahoo.com/south-sudan-rebels-threaten-stall-peace-talks-185210029.html