Sudan offers to finance partly AU peacekeepers in Darfur

Jan 14, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Foreign Minister, Lam Akol announced Sudan’s willingness to participate in the financing of the African peacekeeping troop’s mission in Darfur to restore peace and stability to the region.

Financial problems facing the African Union’s mission can be resolved by the provision of 160m US dollars, if the African member states cooperated to do so, he said Saturday at a news conference held at the Foreign Ministry.

If they want to restore and maintain security in Darfur, they have to resolve the major obstacle, he said.

Lately, Sudan proposed in meetings of the AU’s Peace and Security Council formation of an army representing Sudan government, the African Union and the armed groups in Darfur, said the minister.

Akol said that the UN representative pointed out that the UN had not yet started studying the proposal of transferring the peacekeeping mission from the AU to the UN because of the weak financial support the AU mission in Sudan was receiving.

He added that the UN secretary-general’s statements pointed out the importance of Sudanese government approving any proposal or action which the UN could possibly carry out.
He further saidy that the AU had carried out its role successfully and effectively in the last period, affirming that AU troops were closer to the Sudanese culture than any other troops.

The final decision, however, will be reached in a Peace and Security Council meeting scheduled in March, he concluded.

Pronk, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy in Sudan, told the Security Council on Friday that the AU contingent in Darfur lacked the means to prevent conflict and proposed a more robust UN force to take its place.

The main rebel groups in Darfur welcomed the idea and agreed with UN envoy Jan Pronk’s assessment that a more robust peacekeeping deployment with a stronger mandate was needed to quell the three-year-old bloodshed.

(ST)