South Sudan President Salva Kiir signed a peace accord Wednesday to end 20 months of civil war, but also issued a list of “serious reservations” and warned the deal might not last.
“The current peace we are signing today has so many things we have to reject,” Kiir said at the ceremony, witnessed by regional leaders, diplomats and journalists.
“Such reservations if ignored would not be in the interests of just and lasting peace.”
Salva Kiir long-time rival and rebel leader Riek Machar, who is expected to become the First Vice President under the deal, put his pen to the document last week in the Ethiopian capital.
The conflict erupted in December 2013 after a power struggle between Machar, an ethnic Nuer, and Kiir, from the dominant Dinka group. Fighting has increasingly followed ethnic lines.
Thousands of people have been killed, many of the 11 million population have been driven to the brink of starvation and 2 million people have fled their homes, often to neighbouring states. It has unsettled an already volatile region.
The deal follows months of on-off negotiations, hosted by Ethiopia, and several broken ceasefire agreements.
Rebels said they captured a town south of Juba on Wednesday after their troops were attacked, and that there had been other bout of fighting with government forces.
Kiir told the ceremony that rebels launched a raid in the north of the country earlier in the day. “Now you can see who is for peace and who is for continued war,” the president said.
Machar was Kiir’s deputy until he was sacked in 2013. Under the deal, he is expected to become Kiir’s top deputy again.
Kiir gave a document to regional leaders listing his concerns. Mediators have said Kiir had voiced concerns about a demand that Juba become a demilitarised zone and conditions that he consult the first vice president on policy.
Machar has also conveyed doubts about aspects of power sharing.
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Source: AFP/Reuters