The leader of the SPLM-DC, Dr. Lam Akol says he and other four political leaders have been stopped from traveling to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to participate in the peace talks.

Dr. Lam told the media that they were denied exit at the Juba International airport this afternoon.

“We have just been told that we are not travelling. The immigration officials told us the directive from the government that we should not be allowed to travel to Addis to the talks,” Dr Lam said.

“This from us is the violation of the constitution because any citizen in South Sudan has the right to travel anywhere anytime,” he said.

Early this week, a fraction of political parties in Juba decided to remove Dr. Lam Akol from heading the delegation of political parties to the peace talks, a move he said is “illegal”.

Dr Lam said they are “seeing interference in the affairs of the political parties.”

“The concept of stake holders is that each stakeholder is independent. They have their own view that they will put forward at the talks. And this will be reached in the discussion. That is why we have stakeholders,” he said.

“But then if you want stakeholders to be proxy negotiators then this defeats the every purpose of the negotiators.”

The phase two of the sixth round of talks is scheduled to resume on Monday outside Addis Ababa.