South Sudan Rival Leaders Meet in Uganda for Peace Talks

South Sudan President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar have gone into a meeting in Uganda Thursday to try to salvage the peace deal designed to prevent the country from sliding back into civil war, VOA news reports.

The rival leaders have said they are not ready to form a coalition government on November 12, when Machar is supposed to return to Juba to again serve as Kiir’s deputy as part of the peace agreement that ended the country’s deadly civil war.

“The purpose of this visit is to have the parties agree to implement the agreement on time,” said Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary, Patrick Mugoya.  

When Mugoya was asked about the possibility of the two leaders agreeing to form a coalition government next week, he said: “I can’t tell. But let’s wait and see the results of the meeting.”