UPDATE - East African leaders debate South Sudan peace proposal

UPDATES WITH ETHIOPIAN PRIME MINISTER'S OPENING REMARKS

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - Leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) meet at an extraordinary summit on Thursday to endorse a new proposal to take the South Sudanese peace process forward.

The summit followed a face-to-face between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his main rival Riek Machar on Wednesday as the two joined a dinner thrown by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Speaking at the opening of the summit, the Ethiopian prime minister threatened to take collective action against the warring parties in South Sudan should they fail to implement peace agreement and secession of hostility.

“We have the moral as well as legal responsibility to take action,” Ahmed, who is the chairman of the eight-nation trading and security bloc, told the participants of the summit.

The proposal comprises key issues about power sharing, transitional security arrangement, demilitarization and cantonment of armies in South Sudan.

According to the proposal, the Transitional Government of National Unity will have a Legislative Assembly composed of the incumbent government (55 percent), the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army–in- Opposition (25 percent), and other parties and entities (20 percent).

The document came as part of efforts by IGAD’s high-level revitalization forum for South Sudan that aims to revive the failed August 2015 Addis Ababa agreement.

The 2015 agreement largely failed when in July 2016 Machar, who then served a transitional government of national unity as first vice president, fled Juba, capital of South Sudan, and entered Democratic Republic of Congo.

Machar remained under house arrest in South Africa, where he sought medical care, for reasons unclear to many.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and four million left their homes in the almost five years of civil war triggered as a result of a political fallout between Kiir and Machar.

The United Nations last week announced that it delayed a travel sanction against the South Sudanese officials until June 30 encouraged by the prospect of a meeting between Kiir and Machar.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Beshir, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Djiboutian President Omar Guelleh are attending the summit.