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- Statements to the Press by UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, following a meeting with First Vice President, HE Taban Deng Gai

Thank you very much and good afternoon indeed we had a very good met with his Excellency the Vice President, It was a very tense meeting. On the security issues the Vice President explained the current evolution of the situation, but also the fighting in some parts of the country, particularly in the north-east. We also talked about the RPF and the need for all of us to continue working toward the expeditious deployment of the RPF some of the units, as you know have already been deployed, but other have to join. It is a team effort all of us should do the best, we as UN the troop contributing countries as well as the South Sudanese Government whose cooperation of course we heavily rely.

On the Security situation, based on the discussions that we had on the fighting that remain in some areas, we agreed that the positive evaluation of the security situation would allow us, the humanitarian actors to increase our efforts to help the population.I am grateful to his Excellency the Vice President, that he acknowledged the good efforts of the humanitarian agencies, the UN, and their partners, and I grateful to his Excellency that he acknowledged the impartially of the UN and its humanitarian agencies, we really appreciate that. We are committed to continue our work and continue cooperating with all those who can help us in delivering this assistance. Of course the cooperation of the Government of South Sudan and the security force is absolutely key for that.

The explanation and presentation of the Vice President on the political process were also extremely rich and very enlightening to me. We had a discussion on the revitalization efforts led by IGAD and we agreed that this is a very promising initiative that should be carried forward that it offers a chance for durable peace to be bought into South Sudan and we also had a discussion on the efforts led by Uganda in order to help the reunification of SPLM and that all these initiatives and efforts point to the same direction, they should converge they actually are being operated along the same lines and with the same objectives. So we agreed that these actions and Initiatives should be pursued and of course the UN is there to help also in the political process and facilitates these efforts towards peace.

USG/South Sudan 1st VP Statement

USG/South Sudan 1stVP Q&A on Peace Process