Britain, US want UN to plan peacekeeping in Sudan

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Britain and the United States have asked the U.N. Security Council to begin planning for a peacekeeping force in Sudan should there be an agreement that could end 20 years of civil war.

But the British-drafted statement, which requests Secretary-General Kofi Annan to “initiate detailed” planning on how the world body could implement any peace settlement, has met with reservations from France, which wants U.N. officials to undertake only “preliminary consultations,” diplomats said.

A French diplomat said it was premature for the council to talk about peacekeeping in Sudan, which might still be weeks or months away from signing an agreement. She said council members were still discussing wording on a subject that had not previously been on the agenda of the 16-member body.

Several envoys said France first would like to see a U.N. peacekeeping operation in the West African nation of Ivory Coast, where French soldiers are helping to quell violence.

But the spokeswoman denied this was the case.

The United Nations has fielded troops in nearby Sierra Leone and Liberia, but has left Ivory Coast, part of the same conflict, to the French.

Britain, the United States and Norway are part of a “troika” advisory group on Sudan.

The Sudanese government and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement resumed peace talks in Kenya on Tuesday aiming to end the war which has killed about two million people. They reached a key agreement on security arrangements at a meeting in Kenya on Sept. 25.

Despite earlier resistance, diplomats say the Khartoum government and the south are now ready to grant the United Nations a larger role, such as an observer mission or perhaps a larger peacekeeping operation.

The United States is also considering removing Sudan from its list of “state sponsors of terrorism” if the government reaches a peace agreement with southern rebels.

In broad terms, the civil war pits rebels from the mostly animist and Christian south against the Islamist government in the north. The conflict is complicated by other issues including oil, race and ethnicity.