PM Kheire commends signing of South governance, security deal

KHARTOUM (Halbeeg News) – Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Kheire has witnessed the signing of a new deal to restore peace in troubled South Sudan.

The Prime Minister and his delegates have arrived in Khartoum on Sunday to attend the signing ceremony in the Sudanese capital.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Kheire has commended South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar for their commitment to end the civil war in Africa’s youngest state.

“To resolve our difference does not only lead development but it will also have (A positive) impact on our neighbours as well as the region that why we encourage you not to look back but to draw the future your country wants,” he said.

Mr. Kheire said Somalia wishes South Sudan to get peace, security, and stability.

The deal signed would give the main rebels the post of first vice president, which means that rebel chief Riek Machar would return to the post from which he was sacked in 2016.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir said on Friday he believed the new peace deal between his government and Riek Machar’s SPLM-IO will not collapse.

He said the current agreement was not forced upon them like previous accords.

At a news conference in Juba, Kiir said he would travel to Khartoum to sign the agreement at the ceremony on Sunday.

Machar, who is the leader of the SPLM-IO rebel group which has fought Kiir’s forces intermittently since 2013, is also expected to attend.

Fuelled by personal and ethnic rivalries, the conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced an estimated quarter of South Sudan’s population of 12 million and ruined its economy that heavily relies on crude oil production.

Previous peace agreements, the most recent in 2015, held for only a matter of months before fighting resumed. Kiir put this down to external influences. Both the 2015 and the 2018 agreements were mediated by Sudan and other East African nations.

“The 2015 (deal) was forced on us, we were not given the opportunity to express our desire. This is why when I came sign… I gave my reservations,” Kiir said.