UN Security Council to hold meeting in Khartoum next month – report

May 20, 2006 (NEW YORK) — UN Security Council Ambassadors will head to Sudan next June for a rare meeting outside New York aimed at pressing for an end to Sudan’s three year Darfur crisis.

The Khartoum government and the biggest faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), led by Minni Minawi, signed the agreement on May 5 but a rival SLA faction led by Abdelwahed Mohamed al-Nur rejected it.

Diplomatic sources told the London based Asharq al-Awsat, the UN Security session in Khartoum intends to hold a special session on the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in January 2005.

Members of the Security Council will hold also meetings with Sudanese official related to the Darfur peace deal.

This meeting will be the fifth time since 1952 that the council will hold a formal meeting outside UN headquarters in New York. The Security Council held an extraordinary session in Nairobi in November 2004 to press for an end to South Sudan’s 21 years civil war.

(ST)