Arab League to discuss sending peacekeeping forces to Sudan on 8 August

OMDURMAN, Aug 6, 2004 (Sudan Radio) — A high level Arabic diplomatic source has said there exists and Arab proposal – currently being discussed – which would be presented at the Arab foreign ministers meeting on Sunday [8 August] concerning the sending Arab peacekeeping forces to Darfur [western Sudan] for the first time under the umbrella of the Arab League.

The forces will be among African Union peacekeeping forces which are monitoring the situation there, in preserving security and stability in the region.

The source said the forces will come in the form an Arab battalion [detachment] from a number of Arab countries working within the framework of the African Union forces. The source said the issue will be decisively dealt with by the extraordinary summit [of the Arab League foreign ministers] which was called by the [Sudanese] government to discuss developments in Darfur.

Meanwhile, the Arab League has received an official report from the Yemeni government containing an number of proposals on an Arab vision for supporting the government’s efforts of solving the situation in Darfur. [Passage omitted]

Translated from Arabic by BBC Monitoring