UNSC warns South Sudan of sanctions if peace talks fail

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has once again warned the warring parties in South Sudan that it is prepared to impose sanctions against either side that threatens ongoing peace talks.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, who also holds the rotating presidency of the UNSC for the month of August, read the council members’ joint statement during a press conference on Tuesday.

“This is a very clear statement by all 15 members of the Security Council that there will be consequences for those who try to undermine agreements that are reached in the Addis Ababa talks,” Grant said in reference to the peace talks that are being held in the Ethiopian capital.

This comes days after the council members voiced readiness to employ “all appropriate measures” against those who undermine the peace process.

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power also warned of consequences “if there continued to be spoilers, if there continue to be people carrying out gross violations of human rights.”

Security Council representatives met with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. The ambassadors are expected to also meet with former South Sudanese Vice President and rebel leader Riek Machar.

Mediators from the Intergovernmental Agency on Development (IGAD) – the East African bloc brokering the talks – have set an August 10 deadline for the creation of a transitional government and the implementation of a truce.

South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Machar around Juba.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and the defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.5 million people to flee their homes in the world’s youngest nation.