Sudan refusal to issue visas worries Security Council

April 26, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — U.N. Security Council members expressed concern on Wednesday that Sudan’s government was still blocking a U.N. team from visiting Darfur to help plan for a U.N. peacekeeping mission there later this year.

But council members, meeting behind closed doors, decided against publicly criticizing the Khartoum government on the point for fear of jeopardizing Darfur peace talks, which have entered a critical phase in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

An African Union peacekeeping force of some 7,000 troops is now in Darfur, seeking to protect villagers from marauding Arab militias that the United Nations and the United States say are armed by Khartoum — an accusation the government denies.

But the AU force has proven too small to end the violence, prompting Annan and most council members to call for its replacement by a bigger and better-equipped U.N. force.

Khartoum, however, has not yet agreed to U.N. troops in Darfur and refused a week ago even to issue visas to members of a U.N. military assessment team that must visit the region to complete the planning for a U.N. force to go in.

Khartoum has also been noncommittal on visas for a planned visit by Security Council ambassadors, to be led by Britain and planned for early June, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Khartoum government has said it would discuss planning for a possible transition from the AU to a U.N. force only after a long-delayed Darfur peace deal is reached in Abuja.

African Union mediators on Wednesday gave the warring parties an 85-page draft accord in hopes of meeting an April 30 deadline for a peace agreement ending the three-year conflict.

Council members said they were worried that a statement pressing the government on the U.N. visas so close to the deadline in Abuja could jeopardize a peace deal, diplomats attending Wednesday’s closed-door meeting said.

But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton later accused Khartoum of “delaying and delaying and delaying” the visas as part of “a pattern that the Sudanese government has pursued for years.”

And in London, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said in a speech to an Easter banquet: “As a matter of urgency, we need to get a U.N. planning mission into Sudan.”

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, attending the closed-door council meeting in New York, warned that the lack of visas could delay the new U.N. mission’s deployment, tentatively planned for later this year, the diplomats said.

They quoted Annan as saying he would need four to six months to assemble the new force once the council adopted a resolution setting out its size and mandate. The mission should not be launched in any case without Khartoum’s approval, warned senior U.N. peacekeeping official Hedi Annabi.

(Reuters)