Mbeki fails to persuade Bashir of accepting UN force in Darfur

The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, Tuesday failed to convince his counterpart Sudanese Omar al-Bashir to accept the intervention of UN forces to Western Darfur region instead of African forces whose mission ends in September.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told a news conference with Mbeki that U.N. forces were unacceptable because they would come to Sudan with colonial and imperial ambitions.

“We do not reject the United Nations, but in no way will we accept U.N. troops because … these troops have an imperial and colonial agenda. Changing this mission to the United Nations will never happen, never ever happen,” he said.

Bashir said “if the UN is realy serious to deal with us they had to come beofre taking their decision under chapter seven and talk with us”.

Mbeki said South Africa wanted to see the United Nations assist in a way agreed by the government and the African Union. “But we did not come here to discuss that issue,” he added.

Mbeki, on a one-day visit to Khartoum, had been expected to keep up the pressure on Khartoum to approve the U.N. mission.

In a statement following the talks between the two leaders, the president’s advisor, Majzoub al-Khalifah, said Sudan clearly stressed its stance in the talks of refusing to accept any forces or be controlled.

Sudan also rejected the AU authority to transfer its mission to the UN. He said the Darfur agreement did not include any clause connected to this regard.

Al-Khalifah said the two presidents discussed ways of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Darfur agreement, as well as normalizing ties between Sudan and Chad and transferring the AU’s mission to the UN.

(ST)