Elected UN Ki-moon to visit Sudan for talks on Darfur

Nov 11, 2006 (KHARTOUM) – The U.N. secretary-general elect, South Korea’s Ban Ki-Moon, will visit Sudan in the near future, the Sudanese foreign minister said.

The current South Korea foreign minister who is elected to the post of the UN secretary general starting from the next year, Ban Ki-Moon, will visit Sudan to discuss Darfur crisis. Sudanese Lam Akol announced that Ki-Moon has accepted an invitation to visit Sudan soonest possible.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol returned home on Friday 10 November after a visit to China, Japan and South Korea.

On his part, Ki-Moon, said on Tuesday 7 November, he aimed to meet Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as soon as possible to break the deadlock over U.N. peacekeepers going to Darfur.

The Foreign minister had met his Korean counterpart and congratulated him on his election as UN secretary-general.

Lam Akol explained that his meeting with the UN secretary-general-elect tackled future cooperation on Darfur issue, saying the coming UN secretary-general is following what is going on there, but, he added, he needs more time for studying all the relevant files.

The visit to Japan, the minister further said, discussed bilateral relations and ways of boosting them further and the role expected to be played by Japan in development of post-war Sudan.

Japan also urged Sudan on Monday 6 November to accept the deployment of a U.N. mission to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution. But, Akol said Sudan intends to resolve the issue by expanding AMIS, in an implicit refusal of Japan’s call for Sudan to accept the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

(ST)