However, President Salva Kiir refused to sign the accord in time for Monday’s peace treaty deadline, instead demanding 15 more days to consider his options and review the details of the agreement, according to local media.
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Machar on the other hand signed up to the deal after four hours of closed door negotiations, which saw Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Sudanese counterpart Omar-El-Bashir storm out of the meeting in Addis Ababa.
“In the next 15 days, the president will come back to Addis Ababa and finalise the peace agreement”, he added.
The cowboy-hat wearing ex-guerrilla commander was for years more accustomed to leading troops in bush war than making political speeches, and reluctantly took power only after the death of his chief, South Sudan’s first President John Garang, in a 2005 helicopter crash.
However, speaking at a press conference, Mesfin said the South Sudan’s government decision for the vice-president to act on Kiir’s behalf is unacceptable, stressing the talks should be held at principals’ level. “We had a good agreement”.
On one side is the country’s founding leader President Salva Kiir, from the majority ethnic Dinka group.
Even in the event of a peace agreement though, there are still plenty of militants who aren’t under the direct control of either Machar and the government – on top of numerous instances of fighting in the country that aren’t directly related to the civil war. Human Rights Watch last month reported that government forces had hanged, shot and burned alive civilians, including women and children, and had carried out widespread rapes and looting in an offensive in the rebel stronghold of Unity State in recent months. Another rebel general soon followed suit.
“A peace that can not be sustained can not be signed”, he told reporters on Sunday, shortly before traveling to Ethiopia after East African leaders pushed him to do so.
“I didn’t know that he was not going to sign”, he said.
South Sudan’s government has consistently barred opposition figures from taking part in peace talks in the past.
The latest round of talks opened on August 6, mediated by the regional eight-nation bloc IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, as well as the United Nations, African Union, China and the “troika” of Britain, Norway and the United States.
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IGAD-Plus officials said the peace deal signed by the two leaders was final and that president Kiir would only be expected to sign it without further renegotiations to the deal.
