South Sudan talks hang in balance over detained rebels

Displaced people prepare their meals at Tomping camp in Juba, where some 15,000 displaced people who fled their homes are sheltered by the United Nations, January 7, 2014. REUTERS/James Akena

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Talks to halt violence that has killed at least 1,000 people in South Sudan faced further delay on Wednesday after the government rejected rebel calls for an immediate release of detainees in the world's newest state.

Three weeks of fighting, often along ethnic faultlines, has pitted President Salva Kiir's SPLA government forces against the rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar and brought the oil exporting nation close to civil war.