UN, Sudan to discuss ‘hybrid’ Darfur force
Dec 18, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The United Nations is to send a special envoy to Sudan to coordinate assistance to the embattled African Union force deployed in war-torn Darfur, the state media reported Monday.
Annan made the offer to send the Mauritanian UN official in a phone call Sunday to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, it added.
Sudan accepted a three-phase plan in Abuja late last month whereby the UN would offer assistance to the under-funded 7 000-strong AU contingent currently struggling to contain the four-year-old violence in Darfur.
The UN support package’s first two stages consist of technical and logistical assistance but the third aims at turning the African contingent into a “hybrid” AU-UN force and has yet to be approved by Beshir.
Sudanese, UN and AU officials met Monday to discuss the package, African Mission in Sudan spokesman Nureddin Mezni has said.
He said the talks had been positive, but added they had been suspended until the arrival of the new envoy.
The African troops, sent to Darfur two years ago on the AU’s first ever peacekeeping mission, have failed to curb relentless fighting that has left at least 200 000 people dead, according to UN figures.
Washington, which accuses Beshir’s regime of genocide in the western Sudanese region, and Britain have threatened to impose a no-fly zone over Darfur if Khartoum continues to reject the deployment of UN peacekeepers.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in August calling for the deployment of up to 20 000 peacekeepers, but Beshir has vehemently opposed such a move, accusing the West of seeking to turn his country into a “second Iraq”.
(AFP)