In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Ato Gedu Andargachew, who was appointed Foreign Minister last month and eventually assumed the rotating chairmanship of the IGAD Council of Ministers, opened the 67th extraordinary session of the IGAD Council of Ministers, which began Tuesday afternoon in Juba, South Sudan. The meeting aimed at making an overall assessment of the progress made in the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement and the challenges that came across while meeting some of the key timelines and benchmarks.
The Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan was signed on 12 September 2018 in Addis Ababa, by the warring parties in South Sudan. The agreement has been widely extolled and commended as a significant development indicating the dawn of peace. It covers issues relating to the Pre-Transitional and Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity governance structures and institutions; permanent ceasefire and transitional security arrangements, humanitarian assistance, and reconstruction arrangements.
It is known that Ethiopia has played a big role in the South Sudan peace deal and has been working behind the scenes to broker the deal. Last year the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-country African trade bloc, launched the High-Level Revitalization Forum in Addis Ababa aimed at ending the civil war. Ethiopia led the second round of talks in February 2018 and a third round in late May.
