The government of South Sudan has agreed to an immediate end to fighting with rebels, East African leaders meeting in Nairobi say.
Welcoming the commitment from President Salva Kiir’s government, they urged rebel leader Riek Machar to do likewise, as fighting continued.
But Mr Machar told BBC News conditions for a truce were not yet in place.
He did confirm that two of his allies had been freed from custody but called for the other nine to be released too.
The release of the 11 politicians, accused of plotting a coup, has been a key rebel condition for any negotiations.
Recent fighting left at least 1,000 people dead, with fierce new battles reported in the town of Malakal, in oil-rich Upper Nile State.
More than 121,600 people have fled their homes in the world’s newest state, with about 63,000 seeking refuge at UN compounds across the country, according to a statement by the UN.
It is worth stating the obvious: a cessation of hostilities will only work if both parties agree to it. That means Igad is putting the squeeze on Riek Machar to cease fighting, including reserving the right to take unspecified “further measures” if this does not happen within four days.
Igad’s communique will be depressing reading for Mr Machar in other ways too. Like Barack Obama last week, the bloc is stressing that South Sudan’s elected government must not be overthrown by force. When you add in the rebels’ loss of the town of Bor, it has been a bad few days for Mr Machar. It was not immediately possible to get a reaction from the former vice-president.
He may be cheered by Igad’s suggestion that the South Sudanese government review the status of the detained political leaders. He wants his political allies freed before he agrees to talks. But even here the language was not as strong as in other parts of the communique. Overall, it seems as if the pressure is now firmly on Mr Machar.
There has been no confirmation from President Kiir’s office that he has agreed to end hostilities.
He is engaged in a deadly power struggle with Mr Machar, his former vice-president. Members of Mr Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group and Mr Machar’s Nuer community have both been targeted in the violence.
East African regional leaders, who make up an eight-member bloc known as Igad, held talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi a day after the leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia met Mr Kiir in South Sudan’s capital, Juba.
They said they would not accept a violent overthrow of the government in South Sudan and called on the government and rebels to meet for talks within four days.
‘Tank attack’
President Kiir did not attend the talks in Nairobi nor did any representative of Mr Machar.
After meeting Mr Kiir on Friday morning, US envoy Donald Booth said: “He confirmed he is moving forward to arrange a cessation of hostilities throughout the country.”
The US diplomat was also quoted by Reuters news agency as saying Mr Kiir had agreed to release eight out of 11 politicians detained over the alleged coup plot.
“We were very encouraged to hear the president reiterate that with the exception of three… officials who have been detained… the others will be released very shortly,” Mr Booth said, according to Reuters.
Speaking to BBC World Service by satellite phone “from the bush”, Mr Machar said he was ready for talks but any ceasefire had to be negotiated by delegations from the two sides, with a mechanism agreed to monitor it.
Saying that he had the allegiance of all rebel forces in South Sudan, he called for the release of all 11 detainees.
Violence has continued through the week with conflicting reports on Friday about the situation in Malakal, capital of Upper Nile State, where some 12,000 people have been sheltering at a UN base.
Army spokesman Philip Aguer told Reuters news agency in Juba that rebels in the town been defeated and government forces were “100% in control”.
But a rebel spokesman in Unity State, Moses Ruai Lat, told AFP “the whole of Malakal” was now in the hands of Machar loyalists.
According to a report by regional broadcaster Radio Tamazuj, government forces drove rebel soldiers out of the town on Friday, shelling them from tanks.
Dozens of houses were destroyed in the fighting, with a tank shell killing a family of four inside one of them, while three dead bodies were found inside another, the radio said.
Casualties from the fighting in the town have been “flooding” Malakal’s state hospital, the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Friday.
In another state, Jonglei, MSF treated gunshot victims who had walked for three days from the war-torn town of Bor in search of safe access to healthcare.
The fighting is affecting oil production, which accounts for 98% of government revenue.
The UN Security Council has voted to almost double the number of UN peacekeepers to 12,500.
BBC
