Sudan’s Bashir meets US envoy, rejects Darfur troops

Aug 29, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — After a two-day wait, top U.S. official Jendayi Frazer met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Tuesday but failed to achieve her mission to persuade him to accept U.N. troops in the violent Darfur region.

Frazer, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, had flown to Khartoum to convince Sudan to agree to the deployment of more than 20,000 U.N. troops and police in Darfur to take over from a struggling African Union mission there.

“They met … Frazer delivered her message and she has left,” said Katherine Moseley from the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.

Frazer cancelled all meetings with the media, which one Sudanese official said was because she had “nothing new to report.” She had waited nearly two days to meet Bashir.

Bashir on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to the deployment of U.N. troops, instead praising the AU troops in Darfur in a speech. “We are not calling for confrontation or war but we are calling for peace and stability,” he said.

His comments followed a decision by Sudan to boycott Security Council talks on Monday on a U.S. and British sponsored draft resolution to deploy U.N. troops to Darfur.

Sudan has likened the deployment of U.N. troops to a Western invasion that it says would attract militants and cause an Iraq-style quagmire.

But analysts say Khartoum objects to U.N. troops because it fears the soldiers would arrest any officials or militia leaders likely to be indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels in Darfur took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of marginalising the region.

Despite a peace deal signed by one of three rebel negotiating factions in May, violence has increased in Darfur.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland warned the Security Council that Darfur was on the brink of a fresh humanitarian disaster threatening “massive loss of life.”

“Insecurity is at its highest levels since 2004, (humanitarian) access at its lowest levels since that date and we may well be on the brink of a return to all-out war,” Egeland told the council, according to a text of his remarks.

(Reuters)