France’s Chirac – Sudan must accept UN peacekeepers

Sept 28, 2006 (PARIS) — French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that he fears Darfur is on the brink of a new humanitarian crisis, and he insisted that the Sudanese government has no choice but to accept U.N. peacekeepers.

Chirac said he deplored Sudan’s military operation in the remote western region of Darfur. But he also said the international community shouldn’t threaten Sudan, and instead should work to convince it to change its stance.

Sudan has fiercely opposed a U.N. peacekeeping force in the region, insisting it will only accept a strengthening the current African Union mission.

“I don’t think we should use threats in this affair,” Chirac told RFI radio and TV5 television in an interview from Romania, where he was attending a summit of French-speaking nations.

“I think we should try to convince them, and I think we must work to help Arab countries that were tempted to support the position of (Sudanese President Omar) el-Bashir to realize that there are consequences, and that we have to do everything to find a political solution that clearly allows the Sudanese president to accept U.N. troops,” Chirac said. “There is no alternative to that.”

The African peacekeepers’ mandate runs out in late December. If no new arrangement is reached, they could withdraw, opening the door to worse violence in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes by fighting since 2003.

(AP/ST)