Photo taken on June 27, 2018 shows the signing ceremony of South Sudan conflicting parties in Khartoum, South Sudan, June 27, 2018. The parties to the conflict in South Sudan on Wednesday signed Khartoum Peace Agreement in South Sudan, including permanent ceasefire taking effect within 72 hours, according to Sudan's Foreign Minister Al-Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed. (Xinhua/ Mohamed Khidir)
KHARTOUM, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Despite a peace agreement signed by South Sudan's conflict parties in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Wednesday, questions are being raised over the capacity of the new agreement to achieve real peace in South Sudan, given the failure of a previous similar deal signed in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa in 2015, analysts said.
Earlier in the day, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, opposition leader Riek Machar, a representative of the political detainees in South Sudan and representatives for other South Sudanese opposition groups signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement on South Sudan during a signing ceremony at Sudan's Presidential Palace in Khartoum.
The agreement includes permanent cease-fire which will take effect within 72 hours.
Addressing the signing ceremony, Kiir expressed commitment to implementing the agreement.
"I will not let down the mediators and the facilitators, and I will not let down my people of South Sudan," he said.
Meanwhile, the South Sudanese opposition leader Machar hailed the agreement as "important" for both Sudan and South Sudan.
However, observers expressed concern that the new agreement may have the same fate of the previous one reached in August 2015, also sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development in Africa (IGAD), an eight-country trade block in Africa.
Al-Fateh Al-Sayed, former secretary-general of the Sudanese Journalists Union, told Xinhua that there are two main barriers that could cripple the implementation of the agreement.
The first barrier lies in "the transitional period and formation of a transitional government," while the second one involves "the ability of the conflict parties to address the impact of war, particularly the tribal tension which hit the South Sudanese community," explained Al-Sayed.
The South Sudanese government needs to provide incentives for the armed factions to assimilate in the transitional government if it hopes for an enduring agreement.
Meanwhile, they must also work together to address the issue of tribal polarization to enhance the unity of the world's youngest country.
According to the new agreement, the parties to the conflict in South Sudan will agree on all cease-fire arrangements within 72 hours, including separation of forces in close proximity, withdrawal of allied troops, opening of humanitarian corridors and releasing prisoners of war and political detainees.
The IGAD and the African Union member states are invited to deploy the necessary forces to supervise the agreed permanent cease-fire.
The agreement stipulates that there will be a pre-transitional period of 120 days, followed by a transitional period of 36 months, during which the country should be prepared for elections that shall be open for all political parties.
It noted that the government of South Sudan, in collaboration with the government of Sudan, shall immediately rehabilitate the oil fields in order to restore them to the previous level of production.
Direct peace talks kicked off in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Monday between Kiir and Machar, in addition to representatives of other South Sudan's opposition groups, under the patronage of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
South Sudan has been suffering from a civil war since December 2013 between the forces loyal to Kiir and his former Vice President Machar.
