Sudan accepts unconditionally Darfur hybrid force – UN
June 17, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government and a U.N. Security Council delegation confirmed Sunday that Khartoum has unconditionally accepted a joint U.N. and African peacekeeping force for Darfur.
The U.N. visit came after months of Sudanese dallying on the exact nature and mandate of a 19,000-strong African Union and U.N. hybrid force due to deploy in Darfur to end years of bloodshed.
“I can tell you that the (Sudanese) foreign minister told us in no uncertain terms that the Government of Sudan accepted the hybrid operation without any conditionality,” said South Africa’s ambassador to the Security Council, Dumisani Kumalo.
“The president himself just confirmed the same thing to us,” he told reporters in Khartoum after meeting Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir on Sunday.
Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador to the Security Council, said the U.N. delegation also held positive talks on furthering the peace process between Khartoum and Darfur’s many rebel factions.
“There isn’t going to be an enduring peace unless there is a political settlement,” Jones Pary said. “The (Sudanese) government confirmed its commitment to pursue that,” he told reporters.
He called on Sudanese forces, which have repeatedly breached Darfur cease-fire agreements, to “exercise a measure of self-restraint” even though they are “faced with lots of temptations” in the remote western Sudan region.
More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million been chased from their homes since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed _a charge it denies.
The U.N. and Western governments have been pressing Sudan for months to accept a plan for a large joint force of U.N. and AU peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong AU force now in Darfur.
Sudan initially accepted the plan in November but then backtracked, before finally agreeing to the force last week. But al-Bashir is insisting that everyone in the peacekeeping force be African, a demand the U.N. and experts say will likely be impossible to meet.
“The president of the republic has made it clear that the ball is now in the court of the United Nations,” Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam said Sunday, calling on the U.N. to pass a new resolution as soon as possible to fund the operation.
Sudanese officials said earlier this week they expected the new force to be in Darfur by October, depending on how quickly the U.N. and AU are able to get troops and funds.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Saturday that a group of AU, U.N. and Sudanese officials will work out the details of who will contribute troops to the joint force, when it deploys and how it will be funded.
Jones Parry, the British ambassador, insisted Sunday that all aspects of the force were now agreed upon with the Sudanese, including the command structure. He said the force commander would be an African, jointly appointed by the U.N. and the AU.
“There is a unity of command … the command and control processes will be those of the United Nations,” Jones Parry also said.
“That has been consistently said and is necessary if indeed this operation is to be funded from the peacekeeping budget of the United Nations,” he said.
(AP)