Darfur reaching ‘end game’: British minister
June 9, 2007 (LONDON) — The Darfur conflict is reaching its “end game,” and no options have been ruled out for the troubled Sudanese region, Britain’s minister for Africa insisted Saturday.
The agreement reached at the G8 summit signalled that international action over the crisis was coming to a head, Foreign Office minister Lord David Triesman told BBC radio.
The Group of Eight powers on Friday called for action against “the perpetrators of atrocities” in Darfur in a joint signal of determination.
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States said they would back United Nations action against the Sudanese government and rebel groups if the conflict was not ended.
“The mood of the world has moved on,” Triesman said.
“This is not the middle of it, this must be the end game.”
A team from the UN Security Council is to take up the issue with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir during a visit to Khartoum on June 17.
If Beshir does not budge on international demands, the Security Council “must then go on to very, very tough sanctions indeed,” Triesman said, because the Sudanese government “basically doesn’t give a damn.
“All options have to be in play.
“There’s no way, given where it is geographically, to imagine forces, for example, fighting their way in through Egypt or Libya or whatever — these are not realistic options,” he said.
Asked whether that had been considered, he replied: “I think that nothing is being ruled out at the moment — I probably oughtn’t go further than that, but nothing is ruled out.”
According to UN figures, more than 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced in four years of conflict in Darfur which the United States has called a “genocide.”
The G8 said the Sudanese government and opposition groups must allow unhindered access for humanitarian organisations and gave strong backing to a proposed UN force for Sudan.
International pressure is mounting on the Sudanese government to allow the deployment of a UN force to bolster African Union troops.
(AFP)