UN to hold Darfur talks with Sudan, African Union

Nov 9, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The UN Security Council is to send two diplomats to Addis Ababa on Monday to hold talks with the Sudanese government and the African Union (AU) on the Darfur crisis, diplomats said Thursday.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said two diplomats from member states of the 15-member council were to travel to the Ethiopian capital at the AU’s invitation.

The sources gave no details on the identity or nationality of the diplomats.

The Security Council decided last August 31 to send up a 20,000-strong UN force to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region to take over peacekeeping from cash-strapped and ill-equipped AU troops who have failed to halt the bloodshed.

But Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is adamantly opposed to the deployment of such a force which he views as part a Western attempt to recolonize his country and plunder his abundant oil and other resources.

As a result, efforts by the world community to end the nearly four-year-old civil war and resulting humanitarian crisis in Darfur are deadlocked.

Thursday, the United States said it was considering compromises on the make-up of an international peacekeeping force for Darfur.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington still wanted United Nations “involvement” in the Darfur force, but he did not reiterate past US insistence the peacekeepers be deployed formally under the world body’s banner.

“We’re taking a look at how we can address the various concerns that have come up from the Sudanese government, as well as others in the region, about the nature of this international force,” McCormack said.

At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced since a rebellion by Darfur’s mainly black African population against the Arab-led Khartoum government erupted in early 2003.

Much of the violence has been blamed on a government-funded Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed.

(AFP)