Uganda maintains an 8000 strong contingent of troops in South Sudan to check the advance of Lord Resistance Fighters and help President Salva Kiir deal with rebels led by Riek Machar.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Monday, the Spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Juba, Mawen Makol said Uganda will maintain some of its UPDF troops in South Sudan as part of a bilateral agreement between the two countries.

“In the agreement of course the UPDF is supposed to leave after 45 days as mentioned but before that, there was a bilateral agreement between Uganda and South Sudan as far as the UPDF is concerned to come here and do the other works which is to cut down the LRA. As things stand there, it is not going anywhere,” said Makol.

Makol told Eye Radio that even if the UPDF were to leave within 45 days according to the agreement, South Sudan would still hold on to some Ugandan troops for other tasks as was the case before the conflict broke out in December 2013.

“So the Ugandans are correct and their troops will be here to do the things that they have been doing before the war” he added.

Meanwhile, the South Sudanese deputy opposition leader, General Alfred Ladu Gore, has met Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni over the future of peace in South Sudan, a statement from State House in Kampala confirmed on Monday.

Ladu is in Uganda upon the invitation of President Museveni.

He was representing rebel leader and now South Sudan’s First Vice President under the new peace agreement, Dr Riek Machar.

Ladu and his delegation called for the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from the capital Juba and Bor in the wake of the agreement.

They warned that peace in South Sudan will be unattainable as long as Ugandan forces continue to occupy the war-torn town of Bor and the capital Juba.