Sudan voices confidence in AU mediation of Darfur talks
KHARTOUM, Aug 9 (AFP) — Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir told an African Union envoy Monday he had confidence in the bloc`s mediation of peace talks later this month with rebels from the war-torn western region of Darfur.
Beshir told AU commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare his government would do everything to ensure that the talks, scheduled to open in Abuja on August 23, were a success, according to aides.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail confirmed that the Khartoum would send a delegation to the talks but stressed it would not accept any preconditions.
“We do not have any preconditions and we will not accept any preconditions,” he said.
A previous AU effort to broker talks between Khartoum and the rebels broke down in mid-July when the two rebel groups insisted they would not participate until Khartoum demilitarized Darfur and prosecuted alleged war criminals there.
On Sunday, Ismail told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo that the talks also collapsed because the rebels sent low-ranking officials with a limited mandate.
Konare was quoted as saying after his meeting with Beshir that he would like to see the rebels send a “fully mandated high-level delegation” this time.
The president was also said to have briefed Konare on what Khartoum says are “positive” developments in Darfur, particularly a voluntary return by some of the more than one million people the United Nations says have been displaced.
He reiterated opposition to the deployment of foreign forces in Darfur.
Vice President Ali Osman Taha also spoke out strongly against foreign intervention in comments broadcast by state radio Monday.
“Anybody who thinks he can impose on us anything by force is mistaken and we will break any stick pointed at us,” he said.
His comments came as the AU was discussing the deployment of an African peacekeeping force to the region.
The AU`s Peace and Security Council was weighing whether to transform a 300-strong protection force, which is yet to be deployed in Darfur, into a peacekeeping force, its director, Sam Ibok, told AFP.
But Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs, Minister Naguib al-Khair Abdul Wahab, told a visiting UN technical military delegation that government forces were capable of maintaining security in the region.
He told reporters after the talks that his government was not “in need of foreign forces,” reiterating the official line of accepting observers and a small force to protect them but not foreign troops.
The three-man UN team was due to travel to Darfur Tuesday to assess the situation there and meet with AU observers monitoring a ceasefire between government forces and the rebels.
The United Nations says as many as 50,000 people have died since Khartoum and its Arab militia allies launched a bloody crackdown on the rebellion last year.
The UN Security Council has given Khartoum until later this month to disarm the militias, who are largely blamed for a humanitarian crisis UN officials describe as the worst in the world.