EU urges Sudan to end conflict in Darfur
Oct 8, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The European Union (EU) on Saturday urged Sudan’s government to work harder to bring peace to Darfur, the troubled western region where more than two years of unrest has led to a massive humanitarian crisis.
Javier Solana, the EU’s security affairs chief, emerged from a meeting with First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit, optimistic that Europe’s message was heard.
“He has committed himself” to ending the Darfur conflict, Solana told reporters of Kiir.
EU diplomats said Kiir told Solana that ending the Darfur turmoil was key to resolving other ethnic crises in this vast country.
The diplomats, who asked not to be named, said Kiir expressed concern that Darfur was having a spillover effect on ethnic tensions in eastern Sudan.
Solana and Kiir discussed the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in January, which ended a 21-year north-south civil war.
“If the war in Darfur continues, it may also affect the implementation of the CPA,” a diplomat quoted Kiir as telling Solana.
Full implementation of the agreement and its power-sharing arrangements have been slow due to the death of First Vice President John Garang de Mabior in a July helicopter crash, three weeks after he took office. Kiir was named his successor.
Just last month, Sudan’s new national unity Cabinet was sworn in, incorporating members of the ruling party and Garang and Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
Solana also was to have met President Omar al-Bashir Saturday but the meeting was canceled due to an illness in the family, EU diplomats said.
He later flew to Darfur, where the EU has to date spent A600 million (US$270 million) in support of the African Union peacekeeping operation.
Darfur rebels from black African tribes took up arms in early 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression. They accuse the government of unleashing Arab tribal militia known against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson that has claimed the lives of 180,000 people _ many from hunger and disease _ and displaced 2 million others.
The Sudanese government and Darfur rebels are continuing AU-sponsored talks that are making little progress.
(AP/ST)