{{A spokesperson for the leader of the South Sudanese armed opposition faction, Riek Machar, said the SPLM\/A in Opposition welcomed the recent direct face-to-face negotiations between Machar and the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on the sideline of the Tuesday IGAD regional leaders\u2019 summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.}}<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcomed the direct negotiations with President Yoweri Museveni on the side of Salva Kiir during the face-to-face meeting with our leader, Dr. Riek Machar on Tuesday in Addis Ababa,\u201d Machar\u2019s spokesperson James Gatdet Dak told media when contacted on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The rebel leader\u2019s spokesperson claimed that the Ugandan president was \u201cimposing his will\u201d on president Salva Kiir and that his direct engagement on certain issues such as withdrawal of his forces was crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew all along that president Museveni is the co-architect of the 15th December crisis in South Sudan and his continued influence on Salva Kiir\u2019s decisions has negatively impacted on the peace process,\u201d Dak claimed, adding that \u201cit was worth it to also negotiate directly with Museveni on withdrawal of his forces from South Sudan.\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dak explained that during the Addis Ababa interactions between the two rival leaders in the presence of other regional leaders, Museveni was seated next to President Salva Kiir and was the main speaker negotiating on behalf of the South Sudanese president.<\/p>\n
The rebel leader\u2019s spokesperson added that president Museveni agreed to pull out his troops from South Sudan in implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement which demanded the withdrawal of all foreign forces from South Sudan.<\/p>\n
He however said it remained to be seen if the Ugandan president meant his words, underlining that in the past he resisted to withdraw his troops since 23 January when the first agreement on cessation of hostilities was inked.<\/p>\n
The Ugandan People\u2019s Defence Forces (UPDF) were deployed in mid-December last year to help protect and secure the leadership of president Salva Kiir amidst violent conflict which erupted between the leading figures of the ruling party (SPLM).<\/p>\n
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{{A spokesperson for the leader of the South Sudanese armed opposition faction, Riek Machar, said the SPLM\/A in Opposition welcomed the recent direct face-to-face negotiations between Machar and the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on the sideline of the Tuesday IGAD regional leaders\u2019 summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.}} \u201cWe welcomed the direct negotiations with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052686,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14966.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14966"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14966"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}