South Sudan President Salva Kiir and arch-foe Riek Machar agreed Wednesday to a \u201cpermanent\u201d ceasefire to take effect within 72 hours, raising hopes of a deal to end their country\u2019s devastating war.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll parties have agreed on a permanent ceasefire within 72 hours of signing the Khartoum Document,\u201d Sudan\u2019s Foreign Minister Al-Dierdiry Ahmed announced following talks in the Sudanese capital.<\/p>\n
Kiir and Machar then signed the document in the presence of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis day was expected by our people in South Sudan and it has now come,\u201d Kiir said after the signing of the agreement.<\/p>\n
Machar said the ceasefire must finally lead to the \u201cending of the war\u201d.<\/p>\n
The latest push for peace in South Sudan comes as part of a fresh bid launched by East African leaders and with the two factions facing a looming deadline to avert UN sanctions.<\/p>\n
Several previous ceasefire agreements have been violated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe offer this agreement as a gift to South Sudanese citizens,\u201d Bashir said. \u201cThis agreement says that peace has started to return to South Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Khartoum negotiations came after a round of talks brokered by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last week in Addis Ababa faltered.<\/p>\n
On arriving in Khartoum, Kiir and Machar expressed their readiness to talk peace as the dialogue opened in the presence of Bashir and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.<\/p>\n
South Sudan\u2019s war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced about four million, broke out in December 2013 when Kiir accused his then-deputy Machar of plotting a coup, dashing the optimism that accompanied independence from Sudan just two years earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Sudan President Salva Kiir and arch-foe Riek Machar agreed Wednesday to a \u201cpermanent\u201d ceasefire to take effect within 72 hours, raising hopes of a deal to end their country\u2019s devastating war. \u201cAll parties have agreed on a permanent ceasefire within 72 hours of signing the Khartoum Document,\u201d Sudan\u2019s Foreign Minister Al-Dierdiry Ahmed announced following […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":95986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7863],"tags":[39408,27093,39407,29672],"class_list":["post-95983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-section","tag-al-dierdiry-ahmed","tag-riek-machar","tag-salva-kiir","tag-south-sudan"],"yoast_head":"\n