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S Sudan warring sides to form new govt.

11 June 2014 02:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. South Sudan’s president and rebel leader have agreed to forge a transitional government within a 60-day deadline in an effort to end six months of conflict in the country, APA reports quoting Press TV.

President Salva Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar met on the sidelines of a regional leaders’ summit in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

The event was organized by the East African IGAD bloc, which is brokering peace talks between the warring sides.

“They agreed to complete the dialogue process within the coming 60 days on what, how, when and who... (for) the formation of the transitional government,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said.

The South Sudanese government and the rebels agreed on a ceasefire in January and again in May. However, the truce has not held. Mediators have threatened to take tough action if the two sides once again ignore the deals made.

“Any attempt to stand in the way of peace will have consequences,” Hailemariam noted, adding that both Kiir and Machar have agreed “fully to commit themselves to already signed agreements.”

He further said that if they fail to abide by the new agreement, IGAD would act to restore peace in South Sudan and warned of possible “sanctions and punitive actions.”

The political crisis in South Sudan began after President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, accused Machar, a Nuer, of attempting a coup in December 2013.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s tribe against Machar's.

Thousands of people have so far been killed and more than one million displaced in the war. Over 78,000 civilians are presently forced to live in eight UN bases in the country, while many others have fled to neighboring states, particularly Uganda and Ethiopia.