SPLM/A-IO leader is in Juba to discuss the outstanding issues on number of states and boundaries, says SPLM Spokesman.
Manawa Peter Gatkuoth stresses Dr. Riak Machar will meet with civil society groups and other stakeholders regarding the issue, CRN reports.
He told the press on Tuesday that last week’s meeting between signatories to the agreement reached a deadlock with no concrete resolutions about the number of states and boundaries.
The spokesperson adds the signatories to the agreement have been given ten days to sort out number of states and boundaries issue in their next meeting.
Manawa conditioned that if the issue of states and boundaries are not sorted the SPLA in oppositions will not join the unity government on February 22nd.
‘All parties agree that they should go for 23 states plus one that is Abyei Administrative Area but the incumbent government is going for more than fifty-one states which brought us to a deadlock on the issues’, he explains.
Meanwhile Presidential adviser on security affairs Tutkew Gatluak says during press briefing that the formed committee submitted their reports and they are following up on the issues.
He adds the number of states and boundaries can either be resolved through a referendum or the signatories to agreement have to reach a consensus.
The SPLA-IO delegation that arrived on Tuesday in Juba was headed by deputy chair of Sudan Sovereign Council Lieutenant General Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo and the designated First Vice President Dr Riek Machar.
They will be in the country for four days and the SPLM/A-IO leader will have various meetings with civil society, women groups and others.
This is the first visit by the delegation within the first fifty-days of the hundred-day extension according to the Tripartite Meeting in Kampala Uganda chaired by Yoweri Museveni on November 8th this year.