Pagan Amum - (Wikipedia)

The SPLM Secretary-General, Pagan Amum, has disclosed that a draft of the final peace agreement is ready and it is waiting for the warring parties to sign next month.

In an agenda sent out this week, the IGAD mediator body for the South Sudan peace talks says a final peace deal will be signed on the 17^th of next month.

The draft agenda indicates that the peace talks will resume at the beginning of August.

Speaking to Eye Radio during the Search for Peace Program this afternoon, Mr. Amum said the contentious issues raised in Addis Ababa during the negotiations are not an obstacle to the peace process anymore.

“For sure, I’m very optimistic because it is IGAD which says that there will be a singing of a peace agreement on the 17^th of August; it will be signing of agreement –  [it’s] no longer negotiations,” Mr Amum said.

“With regards to obstacles or issues discussed during the negotiations for more than one year and half now, there are some issues that I don’t want to engage in their interpretations, because they have all been discussed and now there is a draft agreement ready for signature”.

Mr. Amum says four leaders from the former detainees are now in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, engaging the leader of the SPLM-SPLA In Opposition, Dr. Riek Machar and his team in order to return to Juba.

In a statement, the chief mediator, Seyoum Mesfin says a draft of the compromise deal will be handed over to negotiators next Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Mr. Mesfin did not give the details of the content of the compromise deal.

The last round of talks in March was supposed to be the final chance for President Salva Kiir and SPLM in opposition leader, Riek Machar to reach a final peace deal.

But those talks ended on March 6, with no peace agreement signed