Japan’s PM faults China over Darfur

June 13, 2007 (TOKYO) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday China should reconsider its support for Sudan, to come in line with international efforts to end the violence in Darfur.

“It is true that China has failed to show sensitivity to the international calls amid unanimous international pressure on Sudan,” Abe told a parliamentary panel.

“I have called on China to comply with international norms and (improve) transparency in the ways it supports African countries including Sudan,” Abe said.

But Abe reiterated he opposed a boycott of Beijing’s cherished Olympics next year, an idea proposed by some Western activists.

“We have to think about sports and politics separately,” Abe said.

China sells weapons to Sudan and buys more than half its oil, leading to criticism that Beijing is fuelling the conflict in the western Darfur province.

The United Nations says at least 200,000 people have died and more than two million have been forced from their homes in a conflict that the United States describes as genocide.

Abe’s remarks mark a rare public criticism of China. The premier has worked to repair tense relations with Beijing since taking office last year in what he points to as a key achievement.

Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, has pledged 150 million dollars through the UN or other relief bodies, either for Darfur or people in southern Sudan, where a peace treaty was signed in 2005 to end a separate two-decade war.

Sudan on Tuesday accepted the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations force for Darfur in a bid to end the violence, although Washington cast doubt on whether Khartoum would meet its promises.

(AFP)