By Spy Uganda Correspondent
Juba: South Sudan parties at the talks in Rome have disagreed over ceasefire monitoring mechanism after General Thomas Cirilo demanded that the Rome mediation monitor the agreement instead of the IGAD-led CTSAMVM, a senior opposition official said.
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“The government delegation has rejected our demand that the Rome mediation monitor the ceasefire agreement. We said that the current body, CTSAMVM, cannot monitor well the ceasefire and as such, there is need for a separate body to monitor the agreement and that should be the Sant’Egidio Community,” one senior opposition official said.
“Therefore, the talks are in a deadlock with only one day remaining because talks will end tomorrow Monday,” the official said.
South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA) and the government of South Sudan have been meeting in Rome since yesterday, to try to negotiate an end to the conflict in the world’s youngest country.
Fighting has been going on in several parts of Central Equatoria between forces of the opposition National Salvation Front (NAS) and the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) in violation to a January commitment to a 2017 ceasefire agreement.
READ ALSO: South Sudan Clashes Between Army, Civilians Leave 70 Dead
The SSOMA is not a signatory to the revitalized peace agreement signed by the government and several opposition groups in September 2018 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The development comes after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month met with Sudan’s top military leader amid increasing speculation that Israel is set to normalise ties with Khartoum.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of Sudan’s transitional sovereign council meets with Netanyahu in Uganda in what would be the second such meeting this year, Sudanese sources said.
The meeting also came hot on the heels of talks between Sudanese and American officials in Washington aimed at persuading Khartoum to establish diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv.
