JUBA, April 8 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan President Salva Kiir and several opposition figures will meet in Vatican on Friday to discuss implementation of a peace agreement signed in September 2018, Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said on Monday.
Kiir, his longtime rival and opposition leader Riek Machar and other signatories to the peace deal will meet for a "spiritual and peace retreat" at the Vatican, Ateny told Xinhua.
The factions will also hold a joint peace prayer for South Sudan, Ateny said. "All the stakeholders who signed the peace agreement are going to be part of the prayer."
Lam Pual Gabriel, deputy military spokesman for Machar's Sudan People's Liberation Movement/ Army-in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), also confirmed the meeting to Xinhua.
The meeting comes just a month after the South Sudanese leader visited the Vatican and discussed the country's peace process with Pope Francis.
South Sudan descended into civil war in late 2013, and the conflict has created one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world.
The UN estimates that 4 million South Sudanese have been displaced internally and externally.
A peace deal signed in August 2015 collapsed following renewed violence in the capital, Juba, in July 2016.
Under the latest peace deal, opposition leader Machar, along with four others, will once again be reinstated as Kiir's deputies.
