Sudan rejects international peacekeeping force

KHARTOUM, Feb 8 (AFP) — Khartoum disagreed with US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s assessment that it may need up to 10,000 UN peacekeepers if it ends its 20-year civil war with southern rebels.

“The government prefers that the responsibility for keeping the peace shall be confined to the Sudanese,” State Foreign Minister Najeeb al-Khair Abdel Wahah told AFP.

Powell reportedly said in Washington on Friday that Sudan could need between 8,000 and 10,000 UN peacekeepers once the conflict between the government and the Southern People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) draws to a close.

Abdel Wahah said the government hoped the international community would give its “full support” to the idea of Sudanese peacekeepers.

He said officials “would bring all this to the attention” of US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kanstiener who, according Abdel Wahab, is to travel to Khartoum this week.

The state foreign minister also said they would raise with Kanstiener other issues mentioned by Powell, including the country’s debt and US sanctions and investment.

“The Americans have pledged to consider lifting the sanctions, writing off its debt on Sudan and establishing an international support group to address the foreign debts on Sudan immediately upon the signing of the peace agreement,” he said.

During two years of negotiations in Kenya backed by US President George W. Bush, the Sudanese government and the SPLA have made dramatic progress toward ending the civil war. They are to resume on February 17.

The war in Sudan, Africa’s largest nation, erupted in 1983 and has pitted the south, where most observe traditional African religions and Christianity, against the Muslim, Arabized north.

The conflict and war-related famine and disease have claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced an estimated four million people mostly in the south.