South Sudan President Says He’s Willing to Hold Talks With Ex-VP

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir

Former South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar

December 18, 2013 (Bloomberg) — South Sudanese President Salva Kiir said he’s willing to hold talks with former Vice President Riek Machar, who is being sought by national security forces on accusations he helped lead a failed coup this week.

The capital, Juba, was quiet while many shops and the main airport reopened today after fighting broke out on Dec. 15 between soldiers at an army barracks, leaving at least 100 people dead and displacing another 16,000. Outside the city, South Sudanese forces loyal to Machar captured two towns in Jonglei state from government forces, raising concern about violence spreading to other parts of the country.

“I’d be willing to hold talks with former Vice President Riek Machar,” Kiir told reporters today in Juba. “As to the outcome of the talks, I am not sure.”

Machar denied accusations that he attempted to remove the government or has any connection to the ethnic and political violence, according to interviews published today by the British Broadcasting Corp and the Paris-based Sudan Tribune online newspaper.

In July, Kiir fired his entire cabinet, including Machar, after the former deputy said he will contest the 2015 presidential elections. The country has been ruled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, known as SPLM, since it gained independence from Sudan two years ago. The men come from two of the country’s largest ethnic groups, with Kiir a member of the Dinka community and Machar from the Nuer group.

Jonglei Fighting

“Forces loyal to Riek Machar are in control of Malual Caat and Panpandiar,” army spokesman Philip Aguer said today by phone from Juba. Fighting is continuing around Pakuau, about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) outside of the Jonglei state capital, Bor, he said.

STORY: What Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Learned About the Business of War

The defecting troops in Jonglei are under the command of a Machar loyalist, General Peter Gatdet Yak, said Philip Thon Leek, member of parliament for Jonglei state, by phone from Juba. Jonglei is an eastern state bordering Ethiopia where Total SA (FP) has a stake in an oil-exploration concession.

“The key facets of a civil war are already there,” Cedric Barnes, Horn of Africa director at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said today by phone from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. “There is fighting in the capital, there are units in the army not loyal to the president and there are armed groups that have taken action against civilians.”

Oil Production

The U.S. and U.K. governments have ordered some employees to leave South Sudan and advised any of their nationals living there to assess their security.

STORY: Byron Allen, Former Stand-Up Comic, Runs the ‘Walmart of Television’

When South Sudan split from its northern neighbor Sudan in 2011, it took three-quarters of the formerly united country’s oil output.

The land-locked nation has sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil reserves after Nigeria and Angola, according to the BP Statistical Review, and exports about 220,000 barrels of oil a day through pipelines across Sudan. A dispute with Sudan in 2012 over export revenues led to a 15-month freeze in crude production that cut South Sudan’s gross domestic product in half.

China National Petroleum Corp., Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd. produce most of the country’s crude.

Source: Bloomberg