Sudan can accept up to 4,000 Darfur monitors

KHARTOUM, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Sudan said Sunday it could accept up to 4,000 African monitors of a shaky cease-fire in its western Darfur region, where fighting has driven more than 1.5 million people from their homes.

A member of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) patrols around Dorsa village in west Darfur, October 10, 2004.

“We have no problem with the numbers. Till now the African Union (AU) are talking about 3,500 to 4,000. It’s up to them,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said in Khartoum.

“They said they want to bring monitors, they want to bring some police, civilians, protection for forces, we have no problem,” he told reporters.

Earlier this month, the AU said Sudan had agreed in principle to an AU proposal to deploy a force of more than 3,000 troops in Darfur.

The AU already has about 150 monitors of an April cease-fire in Darfur and more than 300 troops to protect them.

Rebels took up arms last year, accusing Khartoum of neglect and of using mounted Arab militias known as Janjaweed to loot and burn non-Arab villages and kill their inhabitants.

The United Nations estimates more than 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes and up to 50,000 people killed by fighting, disease and famine.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any link to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.

The United States describes the violence as genocide and the United Nations has threatened Sudan with possible sanctions if it does not end the conflict.

A U.N. Security Council resolution passed last month asks for an increased presence of AU monitors in Darfur with a stronger mandate than just observing the cease-fire.

Ismail said Sudan was waiting for the AU’s Peace and Security Council to meet and make a final decision on Oct. 20 on the expanded duties and numbers of the force.

Ismail also said he had “cautious optimism” that peace talks in the Kenyan town of Naivasha would succeed in ending a longer and bloodier civil war in Sudan’s south.

First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, who is heading the government delegation, was still in talks with the head of the southern rebel movement, John Garang, Ismail said, adding that the government hoped they would reach a final deal soon.