Salva Kiir ready to accept South Sudan peace deal

South Sudan President Salva Kiir attends talks in Khartoum on an end to his country's civil war, June 25, 2018. /REUTERS
South Sudan President Salva Kiir attends talks in Khartoum on an end to his country's civil war, June 25, 2018. /REUTERS

South

Sudan's President Salva Kiir said he is ready to accept a peace deal to end a civil war and set up an inclusive new government.

The deal being negotiated in

Sudan

would give the country five vice presidents and also covers security and power sharing.

"The people of South

Sudan

are looking for peace and if that arrangement can bring about peace to the people of South

Sudan, I am ready to take it," said Kiir late on Wednesday at a swearing-in ceremony for his foreign minister.

"People talk about exclusivity, nobody is to be left out of the government. I accept it," he said.

South

Sudan

erupted in conflict in 2013 because of a dispute between Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar. Tens of thousands have been killed, a quarter of the population has fled their homes and the oil-dependent economy has been wrecked.

A 2015 peace deal briefly halted the fighting but it fell apart after Machar returned to the capital the following year.

The conflict has mostly been fought along ethnic lines, pitting Kiir's dominant Dinka tribe and its rival, the ethnic Nuer of Machar.

This week Kiir named Nhial Deng Nhial, ex presidential advisor and also his chief negotiator in the Khartoum talks as his new foreign minister, replacing Deng Alor.

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