Kiir, Riek in a closed-door meeting

President Salva Kiir and Dr Riek Machar have spent this afternoon discussing contentious issues in a closed-door meeting in the Addis Ababa peace talks.

IGAD chief mediator, Seyoum Msefin, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Deslagn is present at the meeting.

Ambassador Mesfin says the leaders have to agree on the transitional government, the size of parliament in the transitional period and security arrangements before the summit of IGAD leaders scheduled for tomorrow.

“The critical issues are the structure of the top leadership of the transitional government where they have different options. So, definitely they have to agree on one of the options. The second one is sharing responsibility – in the Ministerial Council – of the various parties. The third one is an expansion of the existing parliament to reflect the agreement for the transition,” he said.