Gadhafi urges World to pressure rebels to end Darfur crisis

April 28, 2007 (SIRTE) — Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi on Saturday urged African, Arab and Western diplomats in his country for a two-day conference on Sudan’s troubled Darfur region to work with Sudanese rebels to find an immediate solution to the crisis.

The purpose of the conference, according to Libyan officials, is to explore ways to persuade all of the groups fighting in Darfur to sign a comprehensive peace agreement. The Sudanese government and one major rebel group signed the Darfur Peace Agreement last year, but other factions have rejected the deal, saying it is insufficient.

“My advice is to lay down a final agenda for solutions in the (Darfur) region that we all agree on, and whoever rejects it, he should be ignored and not supported,” Gadhafi said.

The Libyan leader greeted the representatives, including U.S. envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, in Sirte, a city on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, 380 kilometers (236 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli. After Gadhafi’s speech, the officials flew to the capital to formally begin the conference.

During his remarks, the Libyan leader warned that some of the rebel groups may not believe that resolving the crisis is in their best interests.

“We have to be careful that some of these rebel parties are rejecting even the solutions that are beneficial for them, and that means they are seeking other things rather than solutions,” he said.

Ethnic African rebels have been battling the Arab-led Sudanese army and the pro-government janjaweed militiamen in Darfur for the past four years, killing some 200,000 people and turning the region of western Sudan into the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.

Nevertheless, Libya has high hopes for the conference, which the country’s Secretary of African Affairs Ali al-Treiki called “the most important conference held over Darfur.” The meeting includes representatives from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Norway, Canada, Chad, Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan, the AU and the Arab League.

Gadhafi’s decision to host the meeting represents one more step in Libya’s recent efforts to reverse its international isolation. The Libyan leader surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The U.S. has since opened an embassy in Tripoli.

(AP)