Some 63,000 people are now living at UN compounds
South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar has said there must be proper negotiations before the rebels can agree to a truce with the government.
He was speaking after the government said it had agreed to an immediate end to fighting, in a declaration welcomed by East African leaders in Nairobi.
Fighting continued on Friday in the oil town of Malakal, Upper Nile State.
The first UN reinforcements have arrived to help control civilians seeking shelter at UN compounds.
About 63,000 people have turned to the UN for help, among more than 121,600 who have fled their homes in the world’s newest state. At least 1,000 people have died in the fighting.
President Salva Kiir is engaged in a deadly power struggle with Mr Machar, his former vice-president, since accusing him of a coup attempt. Members of Mr Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group and Mr Machar’s Nuer community have both been targeted.
The government has freed two of Mr Machar’s allies from detention, partially meeting a rebel demand for the release of 11 coup plotters.
US envoy Donald Booth said in Juba he hoped the freed detainees would “participate in a constructive manner in the efforts to bring about peace… and resolve the political issues that sparked this conflict”.
‘No way’
Mr Machar spoke to the BBC World Service by satellite phone “from the bush”, as he put it.
He said he had a negotiating team ready but any ceasefire had to be serious, credible and properly monitored.
“So until mechanisms for monitoring are established, when one says there is a unilateral ceasefire, there is no way that the other person would be confident that this is a commitment,” he said.
He called for the release of all 11 detainees, a key rebel condition for any negotiations.
Mr Machar said the rebels controlled the whole of Unity State, three-quarters of Upper Nile State and all of Jonglei State except the state capital Bor.
He said he had spoken to the two detainees freed in Juba, whom he named as his executive director, Deng Deng Akon, and former Higher Education Minister Peter Adwok.
The government tweeted to say it had agreed “in principle to a ceasefire to begin immediately”. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek told regional broadcaster Radio Tamazuj: “It is not a unilateral offer, but it is a conditional offer to be accepted by the other party.”
In Nairobi, South Sudanese Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said the government had agreed to suspend a planned offensive to recapture Bentiu, the capital of Unity State.
“We are not moving on Bentiu as long as the rebel forces abide by the ceasefire,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
East African regional leaders meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi said they would not accept a violent overthrow of the government and called on the warring sides to meet for talks within four days.
Police arrive
The first UN reinforcements have arrived since the UN Security Council voted to almost double the number of peacekeepers to 12,500.
The government is believed to possess scores of tanks like the one seen here in Juba earlier this month.
This aerial view of Malakal was photographed in 2009
The lives of tens of thousands of people have been disrupted by the fighting
A detachment of 72 Bangladeshi police officers based in Democratic Republic of Congo arrived by plane in Juba.
They are trained in crowd management and security, and will be deployed immediately to help with the growing number of people seeking shelter at UN compounds.
Violence has continued through the week with conflicting reports on Friday about the situation in Malakal, capital of Upper Nile State, where some 12,000 people have been sheltering at a UN base.
Both the army and rebels claimed to be in control of the town.
According to Radio Tamazuj, government forces drove rebel soldiers out of the town on Friday, shelling them from tanks.
Dozens of houses were destroyed in the fighting, with a tank shell killing a family of four inside one of them, while three dead bodies were found inside another, the radio said.
In another state, Jonglei, the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) treated gunshot victims who had walked for three days from the war-torn town of Bor in search of safe access to healthcare.
Almost 28% of children under the age of five in South Sudan are moderately or severely underweight – this compares with the 33% recorded in 2006. Unity state has the highest proportion of children suffering malnourishment (46%), while Central Equatoria has the lowest (17%). FULL STORY
