Sudan says time not right for UN mission

April 20, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — Sudanese officials have told the United Nations that they would not welcome a U.N. mission to assess conditions in Darfur as the world body prepares to take over peacekeeping operations, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday.

The Khartoum government said it first wants warring factions to finish peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria. The African Union set an April 30 deadline for a peace deal which the Security Council has endorsed.

Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi “was told in various meetings with Sudanese officials that they felt this was not the time for a U.N. assessment mission to go into Darfur and that they would rather wait until the Abuja process is completed,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He said planning for a U.N. force would continue nonetheless.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton expressed disappointment with Sudan’s response to a proposed U.N. force.

“That’s clearly a mistake that undermines our ability to do contingency planning,” he said.

A 7,000-strong African Union force has been trying to prevent the Darfur conflict from worsening. Sudan has been campaigning to keep the AU force in Darfur, and an AU council has agreed in principle to hand over its duties to a U.N. peacekeeping force when the force’s mandate expires on Sept. 30. Any transfer must be approved by the full African Union and then the Sudanese government.

A three-year conflict between Darfur’s rebels, mainly ethnic African farming tribes, and the Arab-dominated central government has caused about 180,000 deaths — most from disease and hunger — and displaced 2 million people.

An April 2004 cease-fire has been all but ignored, and seven rounds of talks since then have yielded little result.

(ST/AP)