The mediation of the South Sudan peace talks announced today that the various parties to the talks have accepted a draft text prepared by the IGAD mediation as the basis for the new round of negotiations beginning today in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.

After a week of consultations among the mediators and the various South Sudanese groups, the formal talks officially opened today, described as the “the Sixth Session of the Second Phase of the IGAD-led multi-stakeholder peace talks on South Sudan.” 

In a press statement today, IGAD’s Office of the Special Envoys for South Sudan announced that the negotiators have accepted a document handed to them over the weekend as the basis for the talks.

The document, which is yet to be made public, is called the “First Draft of the Text Arising from the 25 August Protocol and Stakeholders’ Positions.”

It seeks to reconcile the August Protocol with the positions of several stakeholders’ groups that rejected the Protocol.

“The participants accepted the First Draft of the Text Arising from the 25 August Protocol and Stakeholders’ Positions as a basis for the negotiations in Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara National Regional State,” reads the IGAD press release.

IGAD mediators on Saturday night handed over the text to the heads of delegations representing the government, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (in Opposition), the SPLM Leaders (Former Detainees), the Civil Society Organizations and the Faith-Based Organizations.

The negotiators were asked to review the document and prepare for the negotiations.

Mediators did not disclose specifics of the new document, but they disclosed that the negotiators will now be asked to discuss “transitional governance arrangements; parameters of permanent constitution; transitional security arrangements; resource, economic and financial management; and transitional justice, reconciliation and healing.”

File photo: Leaders of the SPLM-Juba and SPLM-IO factions, Salva Kiir (left) and Riek Machar (right)