The JMEC says stakeholders to the peace agreement have agreed on a set of security modalities for Juba and cantonment of forces in line with the UN resolution to deploy a protection force in the country.

For the last two days, the stakeholders have been attending a JMEC workshop on the UN Resolution 2304 on the deployment of a protection force in South Sudan. The meeting ended on Thursday.

The JMEC says the workshop addressed the sites for cantonment of forces in contested areas in some parts of the country.

It says the workshop also developed clear and specific tasks and the timeline for operationalizing the proposed security arrangements.

The JMEC Chairperson, Festus Mogae, says implementation of resolutions of the workshop will start soon, in the coming days.

Mr Mogae did not attend the workshop because he is currently attending the UN General Assembly in New York.

His statement was read out by his Deputy, Retired General Augustine Njoroge.

“The parties have agreed in principal on the matter of forces required for Juba, redeployment of forces, and commitment to jointly through the technical details of armament types, and the numbers at JMCC and UNMISS levels,” partly read the statement.

“We’ve also received a detailed briefing and proposal on the cantonment, unification and demobilization of forces, with the approval for establishing cantonment sites in previously contested areas of Greater Equatoria and Bahr Al Ghazal,” it continued.

The JMEC says the UN Mission in the country also presented its concept of operation and the regional protection for to be deployed, which is readjusted to conform to the Joint Military Ceasefire plan.

For its part, the Transitional Government of National Unity said efforts are already underway to improve operations of the organized forces, especially in Juba.

But it says more work still needs to be done at a technical level.

“Plans for the security of Juba are ready, as we noticed from the workshop but more work has to be done and discussions will be handled on technical issues by the technical committee, especially on issues of coordination,” Dr Richard K Mulla, Minister of Federal Affairs, stated.

“The work on cantonment, unification, and demobilization of forces has also started; sites in Equatoria have been already been decided, however, sites in Bahr Al Ghazal are still to be identified.”

Dr Mulla added that the JMEC ceasefire team will make a reconnaissance and assessment of the locations for providing logistics. This will happen after the cantonment of the forces.

According to JMEC, technical work, which is the next step, will be undertaken by the JMEC ceasefire team, JMEC’s security mechanism team, UNMISS, and the TGoNU.

It says they will finalize in the coming days the implementation of the UN Resolution 2304; which calls for the deployment of the protection force in Juba, and to activate other security arrangement mechanisms.