Reports that President Salva Kiir is stepping down from office are false rumors, the Presidential Press Secretary Ateny Wek Ateny has said.

Mr. Ateny says the rumors were circulated by some media houses in Khartoum.

He dismissed the reports at a press conference at the Presidential Palace, J1 Monday afternoon.

According to the reports by a newspaper in Khartoum, Mr Ateny said, the replacement plan was hatched at a recent meeting of senior officials in Juba.

He said this report is false.

“There was no meeting, what so ever that the president has convened with any group at the level of political bureau or at the level of the leadership within the SPLM. If you have read the news yesterday, even they were choosing successors from outside the system which is governing the country. I saw some names yesterday. How this people came with it is something we all need to see and how anti-peace elements are working day in and day out to ensure that South Sudan continue to be paralyzed,” Ateny told reporters.