Sudan wants world to meet obligations on Darfur
By Olivier Fabre and Linda Sieg
TOKYO, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Sudan wants the international community to meet its obligations to help alleviate suffering in Darfur, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Monday at the start of a visit to Tokyo.
The United Nations says the world’s worst humanitarian disaster has been created by fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region, where more than a million people have been displaced and up to 50,000 killed.
Ismail told reporters last week that Sudan had largely complied with U.N. demands to restore security to the region, despite concern expressed by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that most militia had still not been disarmed.
“Now, the support of the international community is less than 50 percent of their obligations which they are already committed to,” Ismail told Reuters in an interview in Tokyo.
Sudan’s government has come under mounting international pressure to end the conflict and disarm Arab militias, or Janjaweed, that have been blamed for much of the violence.
The top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, briefed the Security Council on Thursday and an open debate is expected this week.
On Friday, the United States said it was preparing a new U.N. resolution on Darfur and that U.S. Secretary Colin Powell might address this week whether the violence constituted genocide.
The U.S. Congress has already labelled the conflict in Darfur genocide but President George W. Bush’s administration has not yet taken that step. Sudan denies carrying out genocide.
Ismail said a conclusion to the U.N. debate was likely before the weekend and reiterated that he expected a balanced result.
“I would expect anything which would come out should be balanced and acknowledge and admit the progress the government made … and lay down areas of cooperation and coordination between the international community and the government of Sudan in the second phase,” he said.
PRIORITY ON SECURITY
“I would expect for example that the priority would be made mainly on the security situation because the humanitarian situation is improving, although the international community is still far behind their obligations,” he said.
“So I would expect the Security Council to call on the international community to come up with its obligations. I would expect the Security Council to call upon the African Union to come up with more monitors and to be supported by the international community,” Ismail said.
“I would expect the resolution to call on the government of Sudan to do more on the security field,” he added.
Ismail, who was set to meet Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi later on Monday, also said he would call on Japan to provide assistance after peace was established.
“I am going to seek the support of the Japanese, especially after having peace in the south and Darfur, for the resettlement of IDPs (internally displaced people) and refugees and rehabilitation and reconstruction and development,” he said.
The U.N. Security Council threatened on July 30 to consider imposing unspecified sanctions on Sudan if it failed within 30 days to disarm and prosecute the militias.
When the deadline expired last week, the United Nations did not call for sanctions but sought a wider mandate for African monitors to stop abuses.