Russian president requests approval for Sudan peacekeepers

December 21, 2005 (MOSCOW) — President Vladimir Putin asked Russia’s upper house of parliament for approval to send up to 200 Russian soldiers to Sudan as part of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

In response to a request by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Russia would offer to send four Mi-8 transport helicopters along with authorized weaponry and other equipment, the presidential press service said in statement.

The U.N. Security Council voted in March to send 10,700 peacekeepers to southern Sudan to monitor an accord ending a 21-year civil war between the government and southern rebels. The deployment, however, has been delayed by logistical problems.

The U.N. has hoped as well that the deployment would help end ongoing violence in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where the number of dead from a conflict between government-backed Arab militias and black African rebels is now estimated at 180,000.

The African Union has sent peacekeepers there to help to monitor a fragile cease-fire.

(AP/ST)