Recently Agreed South Sudanese Security Arrangement Very Important for Whole Region: Ambassador

Addis Ababa April 7/2022/ENA/ The recently agreed security arrangement in South Sudan is very important not only for the country but also for peace, security, stability and development of neighbors like Ethiopia and the whole region, South Sudan Ambassador James Pitia Morgan said.

President Salva Kiir initiated the implementation of the 2018 peace agreement in 22 February 2022 which was extended for various reasons, he added.

According to the ambassador, the government and the opposition have agreed for the implementation of the unification of command of the unified forces.

“The important Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) signed earlier with Ethiopia were interrupted because there was no security and stability in the region. That is why it is very important always when we take such a milestone it has to be witnessed by our neighbors and to build confidence also among these forces which were operating separately, but now coming into one command.”  

Ambassador Morgan elaborated that the opposition army under the leadership of Dr. Riek Machar and other groups are now going to be put into the national army and take key positions in the military, security, police, prisons, wildlife and the fire brigade.

“They have to be integrated to build confidence among themselves and to consider themselves as the one army defending the territorial integrity of South Sudan where they have now to know that they are no longer under different commanders in chief.”  

The recent agreement signed was not an agreement but a process of the implementation of the peace agreement itself. An agreement was already signed here in 2018 in Addis Ababa between our government and opposition parties --- among them the armed opposition group led by Dr. Riek Machar, the ambassador noted, adding that the agreement was signed and implementation of the agreement started after some extensions were made because the parties to the agreement, especially the opposition were not ready yet to start implementing the agreement.  

Ambassador Morgan further stated that the 2018 peace agreement dictates integrating the army and security for they were operating separately.

The implementation agreement is the continuation of the 2018 agreement and the integration of the army another very important step yet, he underscored.   

“Our neighbors like Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda have to make sure that we are now taking another milestone in the implementation of the agreement, the unification of the army of South Sudan, which is very important because this is the security sector,” the ambassador stressed.

He further pointed out that this step is crucial to maintain peace, security and stability in the country and the region as well as for the implementation of the MoUs and development projects with neighboring countries.

“Now if there is peace in South Sudan, what will prevent us again from not carrying out our projects?” the ambassador asked, answering that “if there is peace and security in South Sudan,  we would be able and ready to do these.”

The signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan on 12 September 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the warring parties in the country, has been widely commended as a significant development signaling the dawn of peace.