Sudan rejects Rice demands on Darfur force

Dec 1, 2006 (DEAD SEA, Jordan) — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly urged Sudan on Friday to accept a “hybrid” international force for Darfur but was told the African Union could do the job, a senior Sudanese official said.

Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs al-Samani al-Wasiyla met Rice on the sidelines of a conference at the Dead Sea in Jordan to promote democracy and development in the Middle East.

“I asked that we should work together and she said she would work together but only on the condition that we accept a hybrid (force),” Wasiyla told Reuters after the meeting.

“We know as Africans what we need.”

The United States and its allies have been pushing hard for a United Nations force to go into Sudan’s troubled Darfur region and finally offered a joint U.N.-African Union (AU) force which Sudan initially appeared to accept but later rejected.

A U.S. official travelling with Rice said the top diplomat “was very direct” in the meeting about the need for Sudan to accept a hybrid force.

“The secretary said we are all in favour of broadening the peace but the issue here is the protection of civilians,” the official, who declined to be identified, said.

“We are obviously worried about a humanitarian catastrophe. We need to protect against that.”

Such a hybrid force would complicate issues on the ground, Wasiyla said.

Sudan was prepared to accept U.N. technical help in Darfur but not troops, he added.

The African Union on Thursday extended the mandate of its peacekeeping force in Darfur for six months.

The authorisation of about 7,000 AU troops in the vast desert region had been due to expire at the end of the year.

Experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted in nearly four years by the violence, which the U.S. government has labelled genocide.

(Reuters)