UN chief urges Sudan to positively respond to UN-AU operation
March 7, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written a new letter to Sudanese President on the framework for the hybrid operation agreed between the African Union (AU) and the United Nations, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters on Wednesday.
In the letter to President Omar Hassan Al Bashir, Ban detailed a proposed UN-AU hybrid force of up to 24,000 personnel to help resolve the deadly conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“The letter is in line with our agreement to proceed in transparency and share with the Sudanese government the joint AU-UN planning on a strengthened peacekeeping presence in Darfur,” she told a news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
The United Nations and African Union have concluded that between 19,000 to 20,000 troops, together with 3,700 police officers and 19 formed police units will be required under the present situation on the ground and the two will now proceed to develop detailed operational plans.
The hybrid force represents the final phase of a three-phase plan agreed to by the United Nation, African Union and Sudanese government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November to help end the fighting between the Sudanese government, allied militias and rebels, which broke out in 2003.
The first phase, a 21-million U.S. dollars light support package already underway, provides for supplying UN military advisers, police officers and civilian officials as well as equipment to the existing under-staffed AU monitoring mission in Darfur (AMIS).
Ban has already written to Bashir on the second phase, which includes the provision of additional personnel and equipment, but has not yet received a reply.
Jan Eliasson, Ban’s Special Envoy for Darfur who was in Sudan last month on a joint diplomatic mission with Salim Ahmed Salim of the African Union, told reporters on Tuesday that the Sudanese had accepted in principle the hybrid force.
“We have met with understanding on pushing this process forward,” he said, observing that the government has indicated a willingness to have negotiated amendments to the last year’s Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) and is not taking a “take it or leave it attitude.”
On the other hand, they don’t want a renegotiation of the DPA, the special envoy added.
(Xinhua)