US special envoy to Sudan travels to France
December 7, 2008 (PARIS) — The US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson, will travel to France for talks with officials there on the stalling peace process in Darfur.
The visit comes more than a week after French president Nicolas Sarkozy told his Sudanese counterpart that he needs to step up efforts to end the five year conflict in Western region of Darfur.
Sarkozy met with Omer Hassan Al-Bashir privately on the sidelines of the UN development conference being held in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar. No other officials were present.
“I told him that the Darfur tragedy has now gone on for too long, that he must take initiatives and change things” the French president told reporters after his meeting.
The meetings of Williamson will likely discuss the Qatari mediation efforts in Darfur as part of the initiative endorsed by the Arab league.
Unlike Paris, Washington has been less than enthusiastic to the Qatari new initiative fearing that duplication of efforts on Darfur could lead to scatter it in different directions.
The outgoing US official is also expected to bring up the issue of a pending decision by the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the indictment of Al-Bashir which may come as early as January.
Last week the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo warned that the world must be prepared for the prospects of an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.
“The Judges will rule shortly on the prosecution request for an arrest warrant” Ocampo told the UN Security Council (UNSC) in his semi-annual report.
Many observers fear that such a step may provoke retaliation by Khartoum against UN peacekeepers and aid organizations as well as threatening the peace agreement signed between North and South in 2005.
(ST)