Speaking after the meeting between President Kiir and the UN Security Council delegation, the cabinet affairs minister Martin Elia Lomoro said finer details of the deployment are still being worked on.
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The announcement came after the leader of the world’s youngest nation met with ambassadors of the UN Security Council at the bullet-scarred presidential palace in the capital Juba.
The Security Council had approved a 4,000-strong force, in a resolution that also renewed the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The UN said it would consider an arms embargo if the South Sudanese government objected to deployment of the force. Ateny described it as a diplomatic victory for the government.
That violence forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes, including around 200,000 civilians who went to United Nations bases seeking refuge from both government and opposition forces. “We need to know what are these contributing countries, we need to know the size because that 4,000 is the ceiling but we are not duty bound, we can negotiate and even agree on 10”.
On Monday, the Associated Press (AP) quoted minister Lueth as also announcing dramatic limits on a 4,000-strong new peacekeeping force, saying anyone who enters without consent is an “invader”.
The visiting Security Council diplomats met with civilians who pleaded for the new protection force.
“We will design the modalities”, Mr Lomoro said, without elaborating. Samantha Power called Saturday for an independent commission to take testimony from rape victims of a rampage by South Sudanese soldiers at a hotel compound popular with foreigners in July.
“So this has been an extremely important visit, because it is our chance to see the human consequences of the failure of political leaders to bring peace back to their country”, she said.
“To also end this, the peace agreement must be implemented”, Power said.
The Security Council’s three African members – Angola, Egypt and Senegal – voted for the resolution last month, as did the council’s 12 other members.
One of the diplomats told AFP on condition of anonymity that South Sudanese ministers “were surprised to see that the Security Council spoke with one voice” and that “They were surprised by the tone of Russian Federation, and also of China, which acted like someone who lost two peacekeepers”.
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Kiir had previously said that the deployment of the peacekeeping force was a violation of South Sudan’s sovereignty. Desalegn, who chairs IGAD assured the Council’s members that chiefs of staffs of respective armies in the region were making preparations to deploy the forces to Juba “soon”.
