{"id":235192,"date":"2019-10-20T02:14:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T06:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=235192"},"modified":"2019-10-20T02:14:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T06:14:50","slug":"south-sudan-opposition-leader-returns-to-meet-with-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/20\/south-sudan-opposition-leader-returns-to-meet-with-president\/","title":{"rendered":"South Sudan opposition leader returns to meet with president"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Machar last met face-to-face with Kiir in September, when they discussed outstanding issues in a fragile peace deal. His two-day visit includes a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who arrives Sunday with a U.N. Security Council delegation. (File Photo<\/a>: Dr. Riek Machar Teny\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JUBA, South Sudan \u2014 South Sudan opposition leader Riek Machar returned to the country Saturday to meet with President Salva Kiir less than a month before their deadline to form a unity government after a five-year civil war.<\/p>\n

Machar last met face-to-face with Kiir in September, when they discussed outstanding issues in a fragile peace deal. His two-day visit includes a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who arrives Sunday with a U.N. Security Council delegation.<\/p>\n

The delegation is expected to encourage progress in the peace deal signed a year ago but fraught with delays.<\/p>\n

The opposition has said Machar won’t return to South Sudan for good to form the government by the Nov. 12 deadline unless security arrangements are in place.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has said it will reevaluate its relationship with South Sudan if that deadline is missed.<\/p>\n

The civil war killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions.<\/p>\n

Before Machar’s return a unified army of 41,500 opposition and government soldiers needs to be ready along with a 3,000-person VIP protection force.<\/p>\n

But so far there are only 1,000 unified soldiers and security arrangements won’t meet the deadline, deputy opposition spokesman Manawa Peter Gatkuoth said.<\/p>\n

The previous Machar-Kiir meeting focused on speeding up the screening and reunification of forces, but parties left the talks with differing views.<\/p>\n

Deputy chairman for the opposition Henry Odwar called the meeting \u201clukewarm,\u201d while government spokesman Michael Makuei called it \u201chighly successful\u201d and said everything was on track for next month’s deadline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUBA, South Sudan \u2014 South Sudan opposition leader Riek Machar returned to the country Saturday to meet with President Salva …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":235193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-sam-mednick","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235194,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235192\/revisions\/235194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}