Sudan rejects French initiative over Darfur
June 11, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has rejected on Monday a French initiative to hold a conference in Paris on the four crisis in western Sudan with the participation of international and regional officials.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol dismissed following a meeting with his visiting French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, the France’s initiative to hold a meeting in Paris on June 25 to discuss peace process and humanitarian situation in Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur.
“It is not the time to talk about new initiatives,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told reporters.
He stressed that all the parties concerned should focus at the present stage on the initiatives which had been agreed upon by them for a mediation role of the African Union (AU) among the conflicting sides in Darfur with the cooperation of the United Nations.
Presidential Adviser Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani reiterated after a meeting with the visiting French Foreign Minister that “we do not favor new initiatives or new mechanisms contradicting with the existing ones.”
Akol said their talks also touched on revitalizing of the ceasefire to facilitate the peace talks and the humanitarian work.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced last week on the sideline of a Group of Eight meeting in Germany that foreign ministers from an “enlarged contact group”, including the United States, neighbouring Egypt and Sudan ally China, would hold talks in Paris on June 25.
“All the problems of Darfur will be discussed, because I don’t see how you can have a political solution without talking about the humanitarian problems, the military problems and the security problems,” Sarkozy said.
The French minister arrived in Khartoum on Sunday to urge Sudan to accept AU-UN hybrid operation of 23,000 troops to help bolster the thinly- spread AU mission of 7,000 currently on the ground in Darfur, where 2.5 million people remain homeless due to violence.
The French foreign minister is on the final stop of an African tour that had also taken him to Sudan’s western neighbor Chad and Mali.
(ST)