AU meeting on Sudan postponed – South Africa

Sept 18, 2006 (JOHANNESBURG) — An African Union (AU) meeting on Darfur was postponed on Monday to later this week due to the United Nations general assembly, the foreign affairs department said.

Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that the meeting was postponed to allow the 15heads of state who make up the AU’s Peace and Security Council to attend the UN’s general assembly in New York.

South African President Thabo Mbeki and Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are scheduled to attend the AU meeting.

South Africa’s attendance of the AU council was part of effortsto support reconstruction and development in Sudan, said Mamoepa.

The AU Peace and Security Council meeting in New York would convene against the background of the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution 1706. This called for the expansion of the UN mission in Sudan from 10,000 to 17,300 troops and an additional 3, 000 civilian police.

Resolution 1706 further urged that the Sudanese government accept the deployment of a UN force.

In terms of the resolution, part of the new force would be sentto Sudan’s Darfur region to monitor the implementation of the peace agreement signed in Abuja, Nigeria on May 5.

(Xinhua/ST)