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South Sudan talks hang in balance over detained rebels

08 January 2014 20:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Talks to halt violence that has killed at least 1,000 people in South Sudan faced further delay on Wednesday after the government rejected rebel calls for an immediate release of detainees in the world's newest state, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Three weeks of fighting, often along ethnic faultlines, has pitted President Salva Kiir's SPLA government forces against the rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar and brought the oil exporting nation close to civil war.

Both sides met face-to-face for a first time on Tuesday in Addis Ababa but quickly took a break for African mediators to head to Juba and push for the release of 11 rebel detainees, who were arrested last year over an alleged coup plot.

But Kiir's government rejected the request, saying the detainees would only be free as long as the requisite legal processes have taken place.

"We are willing to hear what the IGAD mediators will suggest and we will confer as a group," said Mabior Garang, spokesman of Machar's delegation to the talks in the Ethiopian capital.

IGAD is the East African grouping leading the mediation. Its mediators were set to arrive in Addis Ababa on Wednesday evening.