UK says Sudan has to accept UN force or faces coercive measures
By Wasil Ali
Feb 3, 2007 (LONDON) — Britain sent a strongly-worded warning to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, urging him to accept the deployment of hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur or else Khartoum will face unspecified coercive measures.
Lord Triesman, the British minister in charge of African affairs told BBC Arabic Service that the world will not stand still while atrocities occur in Darfur.
Triesman further added that the world will not allow massacres similar to those of Rwanda, when the international community has been unable to intervene during the genocide that took place there in 1994.
Lord Triesman refused to rule out the possibility of direct military intervention against the Khartoum government, but he said that any move requires the approval of both the United Nations and the African Union.
The Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has previously said that he agrees to the hybrid force proposal but sckepticism remained on his interpretation of the plan.
Prime Minister Tony Blair discussed last December with the US President George Bush plans to impose a no-fly zone over Sudan’s Darfur region while military planners in Washington are also developing plans for air strikes and a naval blockade to pressure Khartoum to stop the violence, the Financial Times reported.
He told President George W. Bush that they had to deal with Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, in the next two to three months, if rapid progress is not made.
(ST)