Arab League head wants Arab troops in Darfur
KHARTOUM, Oct 14 (AFP) — Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa said he hoped the African Union would endorse the deployment of Arab troops in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan in the event of an expansion of the AU force there.
He made the comment at a joint news conference with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail during a brief stopover in Khartoum for discussions that focused on the Darfur crisis.
Mussa said he hoped the 22-nation Arab League would be represented in an expanded AU force in Darfur but did not elaborate.
The AU had agreed that its Arab members can participate in the pan-African organisation’s peacekeeping mission in Darfur but has called into question the participation of Arab troops from outside the continent.
Algeria and Egypt, two Arab members of the AU, have military observers in the region helping monitor a ceasefire between the government and Darfur rebels, along with some 150 personnel from other African states.
Mussa said the Arab League strongly supported efforts by the AU to resolve the 20-month conflict in Darfur, which the United Nations says has created the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.
The Arab League is a member of the Joint Implementation Mechanism monitoring Sudan’s compliance with two United Nations Security Council resolutions on Darfur.
It also has observer status at AU-sponsored peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, between the Sudanese government and two main rebel groups in Darfur.
Some 50,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict since February 2003, more than 1.4 million have been made homeless and a further 200,000 forced into exile in neighboring Chad
Mussa arrived in Khartoum from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where he had attended the swearing in of new Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
In addition to the situation in Darfur, the Arab League chief and Ismail reviewed progress made in negotiations between the Sudanese government and rebels in the south of the country on ending Africa’s longest civil war.
Mussa said he had held talks in Nairobi with Sudan’s first vice-president, Ali Osman Taha, and the head of the southern rebel movement, John Garang of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement. Taha and Garang are leading their respective teams at the peace talks.