France is seeking ways to help Sudan to find a solution to Darfur rebellion : de Villepin
KHARTOUM, Feb 20 (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived Friday in Khartoum, searching for ways for France to help Sudan find a solution to the Darfur rebellion that he says threatens regional stability.
“France is a large country, and very important in the region,” said Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail at a joint press conference after talks with de Villepin.
Asked if France could play a role when the United States has been the major driving force since late 2001 in peace negotiations between Khartoum and southern rebels, Ismail said it was not a “unipolar” world.
“A single power cannot have all the power, otherwise we would be in an unbalanced world,” said the minister, whose country remains under US trade embargo.
According to French diplomats, France’s efforts in Sudan are designed to complement those of Washington, and not to rival them. De Villepin himself stressed that France was working with the United States, European Union and Britain.
The French foreign minister also said his country was ready to help find a settlement in Darfur.
De Villepin said at the start of his one-day visit — the first official mission by a French foreign minister to Sudan — that he was going to discuss African issues and “the prospect of peace and reconciliation” in the country.
France was developing its cooperation and exchanges with the largest African country, he said, which represents “major stakes for peace and stability in the region”.
De Villepin was to meet later Friday with President Omar al-Beshir.
Ismail had said late Thursday that Sudan appreciated France’s contribution to peace negotiations in the south, and “the real efforts that France is making and continues to make … in a bid to calm the situation in the southern states”.
De Villepin spent Thursday in Chad on an African tour focused on the war-torn Darfur region in western Sudan and its humanitarian crisis.
He announced that Chad and France were prepared to support a proposal made by Beshir in early February for a major peace conference at Darfur.
About 3,000 people have been killed and another 670,000 displaced within Sudan itself by the year-old war between rebels drawn mainly from the region’s non-Arab minorities and government troops and their Arab militia allies.
The steady stream of refugees pouring into Chad from the Darfur region is a source of major concern in this north African country.
“We must all be engaged” by the conflict between Sudan’s government and rebels, de Villepin said in the Chadian capital Ndjamena, after meeting with Chadian President Idriss Deby. “Stability in this region depends on it.”
“The regional and international community also have a part to play in this,” he said.
The rebellion erupted in February 2003 over the western Darfur region’s alleged economic neglect by the government.
Diplomats have said that the Arab militias have also carried out raids into Chad.
Some Darfur rebels are members of the Zaghawa ethnic group — like President Deby and part of the Chadian armed forces.
Chad, which has denied any involvement in the Darfur crisis, has been pressing for mediation since late last month. Two ceasefires mediated by Ndjamena have broken down.
Fighting has intensified since a third round of negotiations failed in the Chadian capital in mid-December.
As well as the situation in Darfur, de Villepin was expected to discuss with Beshir the peace process aimed at ending 21 years of conflict that has pitted Sudan’s southern animist and Christian region against the Muslim, Arabised north.