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UNITED NATIONS: UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday opens
high-level talks here with the African Union on Darfur that could
clear the way for deploying a sizable UN force in the strife-torn
Sudanese region.
Ban was to hold two days of talks
with Alpha Oumar Konare, the chairman of the AU Commission, to nail
down a tentative deal reached with Khartoum to send about 2,300 UN
troops to Darfur to bolster 7,000 under-equipped AU troops.
The two men were also to focus on
the final phase of the United Nations plan expected to culminate in
the deployment of a 20,000-strong joint UN-AU force in Darfur.
UN deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe
said Friday that Ban and Konare would brief the UN Security Council
on their deliberations Monday afternoon.
“This will be an important
opportunity to generate additional momentum to the peace process,”
she noted.
Ban and Konare “will consider
how best to give new impetus to the political process and the
efforts of the special envoys which are indispensable for the
attainment of a lasting peace in Darfur,” she added
Also Monday the UN special envoy
for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, and his AU counterpart Selim Ahmad Selim,
who are tasked with reviving and broadening the wobbly peace
agreement reached between Khartoum and Darfur rebels last May, were
to brief the Security Council on the political track of the UN
settlement plan.
The upcoming UN consultations
coincide with a flurry of international diplomatic activity to end
the festering humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where four years of
ethnic strife have resulted in at least 200,000 deaths and displaced
more than two million people, according to UN figures. Libya
announced Friday it would host an international conference on Darfur
on April 28, with representatives of the United States, Britain,
Sudan, Chad, Eritrea, the AU and the European Union expected to
attend.
Libya’s number-two diplomat,
Abdel Salem Triki, also shuttled between Chad and Sudan after the
two countries became embroiled in border clashes.
Chadian troops chased rebels
across the border with Darfur last Monday, sparking a battle with
the Sudanese army. Khartoum said 17 of its troops were killed, while
Chad reported about 30 killed on the two sides
Chad apologized for the incident
but Sudan insisted it wanted further assurances.
But in a new flare-up of
violence, an officer with the African Union peacekeeping force was
shot dead in Al-Fasher, the seventh killed in Darfur this month.
Foreign envoys also lined up to
confer with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir: South African
President Thabo Mbeki was in Khartoum Wednesday while US Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived there Thursday to press
the Sudanese to accept the joint AU-UN force in Darfur.
Meanwhile in Washington,
President George W. Bush’s administration came under fire in
Congress after a senior official revealed that Bush had again
delayed imposing sanctions against Sudan over Darfur.
Andrew Natsios, Bush’s special
envoy to Sudan, told a Senate panel the delay was decided because
the UN secretary-general had requested another two to four weeks to
persuade Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.
Natsios said the US sanctions
package now on Bush’s desk includes financial actions against 29
Sudanese companies and tougher implementation of existing sanctions
on 130 other firms, all linked to the government.
Thursday Ban sought to reassure
Sudan that helicopter gunships to be used by UN peacekeepers in
Darfur would be used for deterrence, not for offensive purposes.
“There seems to be some
misunderstanding on the part of the Sudanese government on this
equipment,” he said, referring to the helicopter gunships. “This
is not for any offensive purpose . . . When you deploy troops you
need to have mobility with some capacity for deterrence.”
Monday after talks involving UN,
AU and Sudanese government officials in Addis Ababa over the
three-phase UN Darfur plan, Khartoum agreed to allow the UN to start
sending reinforcements to AU troops in Darfur.
But the Sudanese said they had a
problem with the use of helicopter gunships and said they would give
a response “within days.”
Khartoum, whose troops and allied
Janjawed militia have been blamed by humanitarian agencies for
widespread killing, rapes and burning of villages in Darfur, has
opposed any large-scale UN military deployment.
--AFP
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